Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW);83 and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR).84 46. Serbia also acceded to the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness (1961 Convention).85 The aim and focus of this instrument is the prevention and reduction of statelessness at birth.86 It mandates States to implement safeguards to prevent statelessness at birth or later in life, including by granting their nationality to children born on their territory who would otherwise be stateless. Birth registration is crucial to ensure the implementation of such safeguards. 87 The 1961 Convention also protects people from being discriminatorily deprived of their nationality “on racial, ethnic, religious or political grounds”, which applies regardless of whether statelessness results from the deprivation.88 47. Article 7 CRC explicitly requires that children must be registered immediately after birth and enjoy the right to acquire nationality. The rights set forth in the CRC, including the right to acquire nationality, must be exercised regardless of the child’s or their parents’ race, colour, ethnic or social origin, birth, or other status – such as documentation status.89 48. The right to acquire nationality from birth falls within the scope of Article 3 CRC, which states that the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration in all actions concerning children. CRC General Comment (GC) No. 14 elaborates on the best interests principle and makes it clear that “inaction or failure to take action and omissions are also ‘actions’” for the purposes of Article 3.90 It clarifies that the decision making process must include an evaluation of the impact of the decision (or the lack thereof) on the children concerned that assessing and determining their best interests requires explicit procedural guarantees. 91 GC No. 14 further recognises that the scope of decisions made by administrative authorities is “very broad” and may encompass decisions relating to, among other things, access to nationality. In all such decisions, the process must be guided by the best interests of the child.92 The failure of national authorities to register a child’s birth and grant nationality automatically at birth amounts to a failure to take action and cannot be concluded to have been in the best interests of the child. 49. In General Comment No. 7, on rights in early childhood, the CRC Committee states that the existence of comprehensive services for registration at birth is a first step in ensuring rights to survival, development, and access to quality services. This may be achieved UN General Assembly, Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, United Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 1249, p. 13, 18 December 1979. 84 UN General Assembly, International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, United Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 993, p. 3, 16 December 1966. 85 UN General Assembly, Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, United Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 989, p. 175, 30 August 1961. Serbia acceded to the 1961 Convention on 7 December 2011. See refworld.org. 86 1961 Convention, second recital; UNHCR, ‘Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, Introductory note by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ (May 2014), pp 3-5, at unhcr.org. For information about statelessness and birth registration, see ENS, ‘Written submissions to inform the European Commission 2024 Enlargement Package’, at statelessness.eu. See also Praxis and ENS, ‘Joint Submission to the Universal Periodic Review on Serbia’ (n 8); UNHCR, ‘Guidelines on Statelessness No. 4’ (n 1), §§ 8-10; and ENS, ‘Thematic Briefing, Birth registration and the prevention of statelessness in Europe’ (n 1). 87 UNHCR, ‘Global Action Plan to End Statelessness: 2014-2024’, Action 7 (2014), p. 4, at unhcr.org. 88 UNHCR, ‘Guidelines on Statelessness No. 5: Loss and Deprivation of Nationality under Articles 5-9 of the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness’ (2020), HCR/GS/20/05, § 77. 89 CRC, Articles 2, 3, 7 and 8. See also Committee on the Rights of the Child, General comment No. 7 (2005) on implementing child rights in early childhood (GC No. 7), § 25; and General Comment No. 11 (2009) on indigenous children and their rights under the Convention, § 41. 90 Committee on the Rights of the Child, General comment No. 14 (2013) on the right of the child to have his or her best interests taken as a primary consideration (GC No. 14), § 18. 91 ibid, § 99. 92 ibid, § 30. 83 9