Overview of childhood statelessness in the OSCE region III. OVERVIEW OF CHILDHOOD STATELESSNESS IN THE OSCE REGION The 57 participating States of the OSCE have made various commitments regarding the protection of stateless people, including their right to nationality and access to citizenship, registration and other documentation. This is articulated, for example, in the 1992 Helsinki Summit Declaration, the Charter for European Security adopted at the Istanbul Summit in 1999; the 2003 Action Plan on Improving the Situation of Roma and Sinti within the OSCE Area; and the 2007 Ministerial Council Decision No. 10/07 on Tolerance and NonDiscrimination: Promoting Mutual Respect and Understanding. Also of relevance are the provisions related to citizenship in the 2008 Bolzano/Bozen Recommendations on National Minorities in Inter-State Relations and the 2012 Ljubljana Guidelines on Integration of Diverse Societies.40 OSCE Participating States should also bear in mind HCNM’s 2023 Recommendations on the Effective Participation of National Minorities in Social and Economic Life, which urge States to “address barriers to full and effective social and economic participation caused by the inability to demonstrate or acquire a citizenship.”41 Of the 57 OSCE participating States, 41 are States Parties to the 1954 Convention, 35 are Parties to the 1961 Convention, and 34 are Parties to both.42 At time of writing, Slovenia 40 41 42 18 See The Challenges of Change, (Helsinki Document 1992), CSCE, 10 July 1992; OSCE (1999) Charter for European Security, (Istanbul Document 1999), OSCE, 18 November 1999; Action Plan on Improving the Situation of Roma and Sinti within the OSCE Area, OSCE/ODIHR, 27 November 2003; OSCE Ministerial Council Decision No. 10/07 , “Tolerance and Non-Discrimination: Promoting Mutual Respect and Understanding”, Madrid, 3 December 2007; Bolzano/ Bozen Recommendations on National Minorities in Inter-State Relations, OSCE/ HCNM, 20 June 2008; Ljubljana Guidelines on Integration of Diverse Societies, OSCE/HCNM, 7 November 2012. Recommendations on the Effective Participation of National Minorities in Social and Economic Life & Explanatory Note, OSCE/HCNM, 24 October 2023, p. 28: “States should address barriers to full and effective social and economic participation caused by the inability to demonstrate or acquire a citizenship. This should include taking all available measures to end statelessness, such as ensuring that no child is born stateless, implementing proper birth registration, ensuring equal access to documentation, and removing any ethnic, religious, linguistic or gender discrimination from citizenship laws.” See Annexe I: States Parties to the 1954 and 1961 UN Statelessness Conventions in the OSCE Area.