UNHCR, APRIL 2023 • • REFUGEES FROM GENERATION TO GENERATION The UN Human Rights Council has repeatedly affirmed that arbitrary deprivation of nationality is a violation of human rights and fundamental freedoms. 25 The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights have issued numerous decisions in which they have affirmed these principles. 26 Commitments made by ICGLR Member States The study, undertaken by the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) with the support of UNHCR, aims at exploring legal pathways to local integration for long-term refugees and their descendants born in the country of asylum. 27 The study is set within the normative frameworks adopted by Member States of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) dating back to the Dar es Salaam Declaration establishing the Conference in 2004. The Dar es Salaam Declaration committed states to adopt a common approach for the ratification and implementation of the UN Conventions on Statelessness, to harmonise related national laws and standards, and to provide refugees and displaced persons with identity documents enabling them to access their rights.28 In 2017, ICGLR Member States strengthened these commitments by adopting a Declaration and Regional Action Plan on the Eradication of Statelessness. 29 In 2019, the Action Plan was extended to 2024, and additional objectives on civil registration and documentation of nationality were added in 2020. The Consolidated Plan of Action urges ICGLR Member States to ratify the UN conventions on statelessness, reform nationality laws to bring them into line with international standards on nationality and statelessness, adopt national action plans to end statelessness, strengthen civil regisration systems and ensure universal birth registration, issue nationality documents to those with entitlement, and nominate government focal points on statelessness. 30 In line with these commitments, and discussions at meetings held in 2019 of ICGLR ministers in charge of refugees31 and on the eradication of statelessness32, the ICGLR Secretariat and the twelve ICGLR Member 25 Resolutions and reports available on the website of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Pages/Nationality.aspx. 26 African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, ‘The Right to Nationality in Africa’ (Banjul: African Union, May 2014), https://www.achpr.org/news/viewdetail?id=112; Bronwen Manby, ‘Case Note: Anudo Ochieng Anudo v Tanzania (Judgment) (African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, App No 012/2015, 22 March 2018)’, Statelessness and Citizenship Review 1, no. 1 (2019): 170–76; Bronwen Manby and Clement Bernardo Mubanga, ‘Case Note: Robert John Penessis v United Republic of Tanzania (Judgement) (African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, App No.013/2015, 28 November 2019)’, Statelessness and Citizenship Review 2, no. 1 (2020): 172–78. 27 Displacement, Statelessness and Solutions: a study on protracted refugee situations in the Great Lakes (update July 2021), ICGLR & UNHCR, 21 July 2021 https://data2.unhcr.org/en/documents/details/86160. 28 Dar-es-Salaam Declaration on Peace, Security, Democracy and Development in the Great Lakes Region, ICGLR, adopted by the First Summit of Heads of State and Government, Dar -es-Salaam, 19-20 November 2004, paragraph 68 http://www.icglr.org/images/Dar_Es_Salaam_Declaration_on_Peace_Security_Democracy_and_Development.pdf 29 Declaration on the Eradication of Statelessness, adopted by Ministers of Foreign Affairs of ICGLR Member Sta tes, June 2017 http://www.refworld.org/docid/59e9cb8c4.html. 30 Consolidated Action Plan of the ICGLR on the Eradication of Statelessness 2017 -2024 (revised and expanded in 2019 and 2020) https://www.refworld.org/docid/60e70b3f4.html. 31 Outcome Document of the High-level meeting of ministers in charge of refugees in the Great Lakes Region’, 7 March 2019, Munyonyo, Kampala, Uganda https://ungreatlakes.unmissions.org/sites/default/files/outcome_document.pdf. Other documents from the meeting are available here: https://ungreatlakes.unmissions.org/refugees-meeting. 32 Outcome document – Ministerial Conference on the Eradication of Statelessness in the Great Lakes Region , ICGLR & UNHCR, Nairobi, Kenya, 27 May 2019 https://data2.unhcr.org/en/documents/download/69687. 9