8 this issue therefore account for some 30% of the total worldwide tally. The Committee has been most active in raising this issue over the past 5 years, adopting relevant recommendations in its Concluding Observations in respect of more than 50% of European state party reports. Even so, within this period too, the Committee has missed several opportunities to provide recommendations in respect of law and practice which is problematic in terms of childhood statelessness. For instance, at the time of their latest review, Denmark and Austria maintained nationality laws that discriminate against children born out of wedlock; while Norway lacks any safeguard to grant nationality to children born stateless in the territory and numerous other countries have only partial safeguards which do not comply with their international obligations.49 The lack of Concluding Observations addressing these gaps, in spite of the Committee’s evident interest in promoting children’s right to a nationality, demonstrates that more effort is needed to ensure that relevant information reaches the Committee and is taken into account in its work, in order to make better use of this important advocacy opportunity and to remind states of their international commitments. This is also one of the areas for increased engagement identified in the “Action Statement” adopted at the regional conference on preventing childhood statelessness in Europe, convened by ENS in June 2015.50 The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) lies at the heart of human rights protection in Europe. While this instrument does not explicitly recognize a right to a nationality, or prescribe the prevention of childhood statelessness, nationality has been recognized as an element of a person’s social identity in the case law of the European Court of Human Rights. As such, in some situations, the denial of citizenship51 or uncertainty as to the possibility of obtaining recognition of citizenship52 can cause a violation of the right to respect for private life, which is protected under article 8 of the ECHR. In European jurisprudence, the principles of best interests of the child53 and of nondiscrimination54 have also emerged as key interpretative tools in ascertaining when an interference with nationality rights indeed amounts to an interference with the right to private life. Case law of the European Court of Human Rights has also demonstrated that the circumstance of statelessness is significant when considering whether a state has overstepped the permissible limits of its margin of appreciation. 55 THE 1961 STATELESSNESS CONVENTION AND THE 1997 EUROPEAN CONVENTION ON NATIONALITY Human rights and child rights frameworks are not the only tools in the arsenal when it comes to protecting the right of every child to acquire a nationality. States have also concluded international and regional agreements which set out in more detail how childhood statelessness is to be tackled. Since, in principle, it is for each state to set the conditions for acquisition and loss of nationality under its own domestic law, different approaches to this question inevitably create conflicts of laws which could lead to statelessness.56 Settling such conflicts by establishing which state, in these cases, is responsible for attributing nationality – and thus preventing statelessness – is a central aim of these more elaborate international norms. The two most important instruments in this respect are the 1961 UN Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness (1961 Convention)57 and the 1997 European Convention on Nationality (ECN).58 The 1961 Convention and ECN both outline a number of concrete safeguards that states must integrate within their nationality legislation,59 to ensure that children acquire a nationality in situations where they would otherwise be stateless.60 Neither convention obliges state parties to adopt, as standard, a particular approach to the granting of nationality at birth – they accept both parentage or descent-based (jus sanguinis) and birthplace-based (jus soli) systems for conferral of nationality as legitimate. However, crucially, both conventions establish the duty of states to confer nationality to those children born on their territory who do not acquire any other nationality at birth. This principle is contained in article 1 of the 1961 Convention and article 6(2) of the ECN.61 The 1961 Convention also prescribes the conferral of nationality by descent, from a citizen parent, to a child born abroad where that child would otherwise be stateless (for instance, where the child is born in the territory of a non-contracting state).62 Both the 1961 Convention and the ECN also have specific provisions aimed at safeguarding the right to a nationality for foundlings,63 as well as preventing children from being rendered stateless as a result of loss or deprivation of nationality.64 MAP 1 1961 CONVENTION ECN BOTH At the time of writing, a total of 31 states in Europe are state parties to either, or both, the 1961 Convention and ECN. As shown on map 1, the 1961 Convention has 29 states parties and the ECN 20, with significant overlap between the two.65 Evidently, more needs to be done to promote accession to these two instruments in order to strengthen the framework for the prevention of childhood statelessness in the region. Nevertheless, these concrete standards already form an important complement to the more general commitment made by European states – through their human rights obligations – to fulfilling children’s right to a nationality, offering