7 With these 14 simple words, Renate Winter, Member of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child – addressing participants at the ENS regional conference on Preventing Childhood Statelessness, held in Budapest in June 2015 – summed up why the enjoyment of a nationality is a fundamental right of every child. Children affected by statelessness did not choose this status. Nor do they somehow exist as free agents without any attachments to a family, a community, a place or a home. They have the same connections as anyone else. They have a country. They belong. Yet their country is letting them down, right from the start, by failing to ensure that this belonging translates into nationality – a legal bond that formalises their membership of the community and provides protection, rights, empowerment, a sense of acceptance and inclusion. Under international law, the enjoyment of most human rights is not contingent on nationality.34 This is also true for the enjoyment of children’s rights.35 Yet, in practice the lack of any nationality often severely obstructs the exercise of a wide array of human rights.36 Recognising how important it is that everyone holds a nationality, since as early as the 1930s, governments have therefore sought to ensure that no child is left stateless by concluding international agreements on the matter.37 This section sets out the international framework according to which states must ensure the right of every child to enjoy a nationality. THE CONVENTION ON THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD AND OTHER RELEVANT HUMAN RIGHTS INSTRUMENTS Today, the right to acquire a nationality is firmly established as a universal right of every child, thanks to its inclusion in the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and numerous other human rights instruments.38 Article 7 of the CRC provides as follows: 1. The child shall be registered immediately after birth and shall have the right from birth to a name, the right to acquire a nationality and, as far as possible, the right to know and be cared for by his or her parents. 2. States Parties shall ensure the implementation of these rights in accordance with their national law and their obligations under relevant international instruments in this field, in particular where the child would otherwise be stateless.39 Article 8 of the CRC further protects the right of children to preserve their identity, including nationality. The general principles contained in the CRC are also instrumental in interpreting and protecting children’s right to a nationality, to better understand what is demanded of states.40 The four central principles are: the right to life, survival and development,41 best interests of the child,42 respect for the views of the child43 and non-discrimination.44 Statelessness can impede a child’s development and even survival by obstructing access to healthcare, for instance.45 Given this and the need to give primary consideration to what is in the best interests of the child whenever any decision or action is taken which involves a child, children should not be left stateless for a long period after birth but must acquire a nationality at birth or as soon as possible after birth.46 Where children’s nationality may be affected by the actions of their parents or of the state, for instance in the case of renunciation or loss of nationality during childhood, there should be space – as appropriate – for the child’s opinion to be factored in. The principle of nondiscrimination implies, for instance, that regulations aimed at preventing statelessness may not discriminate between children on the basis of their or their parents’ status.47 Supplementing this latter norm are numerous other human rights provisions which explicitly outlaw discrimination in the enjoyment of the right to a nationality. These include article 5 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD) which prohibits racial or ethnic discrimination in nationality rights; and article 9 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) which prescribes equal nationality rights for men and women – including with respect to the transmission of nationality to their children. ENGAGEMENT OF UN COMMITTEE ON THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD ON CHILDREN’S RIGHT TO A NATIONALITY IN EUROPE The Committee on the Rights of the Child provides authoritative guidance on and monitors the implementation of the CRC by states parties. Through the convening of General Days of Discussion and the adoption of General Comments, the Committee helps to deepen the understanding of states’ obligations under the CRC in respect of particular themes and rights/articles. The Committee periodically reviews states’ performance through a reporting process and can now also receive individual complaints against violations of the CRC in respect of those states which have acceded to the Third Optional Protocol on a communications procedure (which entered into force in April 2014). The Committee has yet to dedicate a General Day of Discussion or General Comment to the question of children’s right to nationality, which would help to further crystallise how states are to realise this right through their law and policy in accordance with the guiding principles of the CRC, including in complex cases.48 However, the Committee has issued recommendations on this topic in the “Concluding Observations” it has adopted in response to state party reports. Since it began this work in 1993, a total of 128 state party reports submitted by European states have been considered. The Committee adopted Concluding Observations relating to children’s right to a nationality in respect of 42 countries – a total of 62 relevant recommendations in all – equivalent to almost a third of these reviews. At the global level, 438 state party reports have been reviewed in all and 140 countries received recommendations relating to the right to nationality. Recommendations to European states on