18 NO OR MINIMAL SAFEGUARDS The final category into which some of Europe’s legislative fall is that of “no / minimal safeguard”. Encouragingly, there are just four countries in this group: Cyprus, Norway, Romania and Switzerland.144 Of these, Norway and Romania are directly violating specific international obligations that they have taken on by maintaining such a gap in their laws. Cyprus, however, has the most problematic legislation as it is the only European state that lacks even a safeguard to ensure that foundlings acquire a nationality.145 In Norway, stateless children born in the country must rely on a general application procedure to acquire a nationality. Positively, this procedure is facilitated for anyone who is stateless (regardless of place of birth) – e.g. they can already apply before the age of 12 and do not have to fulfil the same requirements relating to length of residence. Still, the further conditions are in conflict with international standards in respect of stateless children born in the territory and can be difficult to fulfil. These include, most notably, the requirement of lawful, permanent residence as well as the possibility for the application to be refused if granting nationality is “contrary to the interests of national security or to foreign policy considerations”.146 Romanian nationality law only offers an application process that is very similar to the standard naturalisation procedure, with many conditions having to be fulfilled.149 Swiss nationality law similarly has what is effectively a facilitated naturalisation procedure: it allows applications only from persons under 18 years old, who are integrated in the country, who abide the law and are no threat to the State.148 In its most recent review before the Committee on the Rights of the Child, the Committee picked up on this gap and expressed “[concern] that children born in the State party, who would otherwise be stateless, are not guaranteed the right to acquire Swiss nationality”.149 Thus, given that all four of these countries have an obligation under the CRC to ensure that children can enjoy the right to a nationality – and two of these states have made additional commitments to this cause through their accession to both the 1961 Convention and ECN – these laws are in urgent need of reform. It is noteworthy that, in Romania and in Norway, international conventions to which the state is a party are directly enforceable and can be invoked before the national courts.150 Moreover, a draft bill has already been forwarded to the Ministry of Justice for consideration, but if passed in its current form it would only move the country up to the category of “partial safeguard” as it would grant nationality to children “born on Romanian territory from stateless parents”.151 Further education and advocacy is evidently needed to ensure that lawmakers fully understand the contexts in which childhood statelessness can arise and the obligations that international law imposes to ensure that comprehensive (“full”) safeguards are introduced – not just in Romania, but also in the other countries identified in this section where the law only offers a partial solution.