4, ADDRESSING STATELESSNESS THROUGH THE RIGHTS TO EQUALITY AND NON-DISCRIMINATION a birth certificate for enrolment is a practice which applies equally to all children, but puts stateless children at a particular disadvantage. The result is that many stateless children in Nepal are unable to enjoy their right to education. Under the equality framework, in order to be lawful, this practice, which puts some children at a particular disadvantage, must be justified. Schools may be pursuing a legitimate aim in ensuring that they can identify their students, but whether an inflexible requirement to show a birth certificate is proportionate to this aim is questionable. While the underlying (direct) discrimination is commonly challenged (e.g. nationality laws which do not allow women to pass their nationality to their children), the equality framework is not used often enough to challenge whether such indirectly discriminatory practices can be justified. The right to protection from indirect discrimination requires that such measures are scrutinised and that authorities are required to adequately explain how they are justified. 3.2.4 Failure to take positive action for stateless people The flurry of progress in the development of the legal framework on equality, outlined in 3.1 above, has brought us to a point where the majority of academics and lawmakers recognise that substantive equality is necessary, meaning that steps must be taken to correct disadvantages faced by individuals as a result of living in a society which structurally favours some over others, and that the rights to equality and non-discrimination are to be interpreted in this vein. The implications of this element of the equality framework for stateless people have been little considered or tested. One area in which this approach has potential is in considering protections provided within the international framework on statelessness equality relating commit persons. ‘> °6 as matters requiring positive action to advance the of stateless people. Under Article 32 of the 1954 Convention to the Status of Stateless Persons, (1954 Convention)°® States to facilitating the assimilation and naturalisation of stateless Under Article 25 States are required to afford administrative For a detailed discussion of the developments in equality jurisprudence, with a focus on the development in the UK legal framework see, B. Hepple, supra n4, pp. 17-29. Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, 28 September 1954, entry into force 6 June 1960, 360 UNTS 117. 116