On November 12, 2025, Nausica Palazzo, Associate Professor of Family and Constitutional Law at NOVA School of Law, Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, delivered a lecture at UC Berkeley Law School on the evolution of registered partnerships in Europe. The talk 
examined how partnership regimes have shifted from tools of queer liberation, to political compromises, to legally mandated forms of recognition under European human rights law.
Palazzo began by situating registered partnerships within the late-1990s transformation of European family law. During this period, several states reconceptualized family law as a menu of options, allowing individuals to choose among marriage, lighter civil unions or registrations, or legal invisibility. Early partnership regimes emerged alongside broader LGBTQ+ activism that challenged marriage as the sole legitimate form of family recognition, advancing an understanding of equality grounded in difference rather than assimilation. She then traced the second phase, marked by the rise of same-sex marriage litigation. As judicial victories accumulated, registered partnerships increasingly functioned as intermediate or compromise institutions. While LGBTQ+ activists often viewed registration as a stepping stone toward marriage, social and religious conservatives embraced it as an alternative to marriage equality. Over time, this shifted the symbolic meaning of registration, leading to critiques of civil unions as “separate but equal” regimes that reinforced second-class citizenship
The lecture next addressed a third phase, most visible in contemporary Europe, where registered partnerships have gained popularity among both same-sex and opposite-sex couples. Drawing on empirical data from France, Belgium, and the Netherlands, Palazzo showed that registrations in some years equal or surpass marriages, indicating that marriage is no longer the dominant endpoint of relationship recognition. She also highlighted litigation brought by opposite-sex couples who argue that exclusion from registration regimes constitutes discrimination, particularly for those who object to marriage on ideological grounds.
Palazzo concluded by analyzing the 2023 jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights, which for the first time recognized a right for same-sex couples to access registered partnerships under the European Convention on Human Rights. This ruling obliges all contracting states to provide some form of legal recognition, even in jurisdictions resistant to such reforms. Palazzo emphasized that the Court’s reasoning reflects an anti-majoritarian conception of equality, prioritizing equal citizenship and legal recognition over appeals to tradition or popular morality.
The lecture concluded with discussion on how registered partnerships reflect shifting understandings of equality—from difference, to sameness, to choice, and ultimately to basic equal citizenship—and on the broader implications of these developments for family law, queer theory, and contemporary cultural conflicts. This talk came about as a result of a Portugal-Berkeley Visiting Professor Program grant which was awarded to Professor Oppenheimer, Clinical Professor of Law at UC Berkeley, by the Center for Portuguese Studies to host Professor Palazzo and sponsor this public lecture.