13 MAP 2 VIOLATION OF INTERNATIONAL OBLIGATIONS 20 countries were found to have a partial safeguard, while four countries were identified as having no or only a minimal safeguard. For the purposes of this general categorisation, it is important to note that all domestic legislation was assessed against the same international benchmarks, even where the state in question is not a state party to either the 1961 Convention or the ECN and has thereby yet to accept specific international obligations along these lines. All of the countries have committed to fulfilling the right of every child to acquire a nationality, as states parties to the CRC. Nevertheless, it is significant to also look at the question of individual state compliance with obligations that it has taken on as a party to the 1961 Convention and/or ECN. Map 3 shows, for each of the states which has acceded to one or both of these instruments, whether its legislation is compliant with those standards with respect to the conferral of nationality to otherwise stateless children born on the territory. Here, 16 states emerge where the law currently falls short, in one way or another. This means that less than 50% of states parties to the 1961 Convention and/or ECN have followed through on their international commitment by fully and correctly transposing this critical safeguard into their domestic legislation. It is striking that the performance of states which are not a party to either instrument is actually very similar: 8 out of 15 states fail to meet the international standard set, so close to 50% of non-states parties have legislation that is compliant on this issue, in spite of their lack of accession to the conventions. MAP 3 FULL PARTIAL NO/MINIMAL PREVENTING THE INHERITANCE OF LARGE-SCALE STATELESSNESS The dissolution of the Soviet Union left large-scale statelessness in its wake. Today, children continue to be born stateless due to the transmission of this status from parents who did not acquire a nationality following the succession of states in the early 1990s. As briefly touched upon in section 1 of this report, Latvia and Estonia are two such countries.102 Both states’ nationality laws exhibit flaws that have allowed children born in the territory to parents left stateless upon independence to inherit their parents’ statelessness. One of the challenges is that the laws rely on the parents taking action, on behalf of their children, to secure a nationality for them – this does not occur automatically, by operation of the law. For different reasons, some parents have not made use of this opportunity. In Latvia, for instance, a 2012 survey found that 15% of “non-citizen” parents were not willing to apply for nationality for their children.103 If the parents have not taken action by the time the child is 15, he or she can apply for citizenship independently, but additional criteria must be met. This not only means that some stateless children entitled to Latvian nationality nevertheless remain stateless for a significant period of their childhood, but it is possible that those whose parents have not taken action will face additional challenges in accessing nationality if they choose to subsequently apply themselves. Erik was born in Latvia and is 15 years old. His father was born in Ukraine, but his mother was born in the former USSR Republic of Latvia. Both of Erik’s parents were Latvian non-citizens at the moment of his birth. Erik does not know the reasons why his parents did not register him as a Latvian citizen; according to him, this is most probably because the status of non-citizen is not a barrier in daily life for him or his parents. In 2011, his mother acquired Lithuanian citizenship. Since one of Erik’s parents is a noncitizen, but the other is now a national of another state, Erik cannot apply for Latvian citizenship by registration (for such an option, both of the parents should be non-citizens), but must now apply for naturalisation and fulfil all of the related requirements.104 The rules relating to access to nationality for children of stateless parents have been eased in Latvia, over the years, in order to limit the inheritance of statelessness. Prior to 2013, the consent of both parents was required for access to nationality, but an amendment passed that year made it possible for an application to be processed at the initiative of just one parent. This led to a considerable up-take in the acquisition of nationality by the children of “non-citizen” parents.105 Nevertheless, stateless children are still reliant on their parents’ views and action in order to secure their right to a nationality at or soon after birth.