should “Strengthen efforts to ensure retroactive birth registrations and issuance of documents for children lacking such documentation as well as to ensure that children lacking identity documents are not refused access to health, education and other public services, including child allowances”; and “Ensure full birth registration, including by retroactive registration, and access to public services, including to education for children lacking documentation”. 14. Macedonia accepted all the recommendations and stated that they were being implemented. Macedonia’s International obligations 15. Macedonia is a state party of the following international and regional mechanisms related to the protection of human rights in general, and the issue of statelessness in particular: a) b) c) d) International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) - acceded in 1994; International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) – acceded in 1994; UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) - acceded in 1993; UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD) - acceded in 1994; e) UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) acceded in 1994 f) UN Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT) - acceded in 1994; g) UN Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons –acceded in 1994; h) European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) - acceded in 1997; and i) European Convention on Nationality (ECN) – acceded in 2003. 16. Many of these treaties guarantee the right to a nationality for all on a non-discriminatory basis. These include Article 24 of the ICCPR, Articles 7 and 8 of the CRC, Article 9 of the CEDAW, and Article 5 of the CERD. Of particular significance is Article 7 of the CRC, which enshrines every child’s right to be registered immediately after a birth and to acquire a nationality and protects all children from statelessness. Similarly, the CERD sets out in relation to the right to nationality that: ‘’States Parties undertake to prohibit and to eliminate racial discrimination in all its forms and to guarantee the right of everyone, without distinction as to race, colour, or national or ethnic origin, to equality before the law’’. 17. Macedonia is not party to the following international and regional instruments: a) UN Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness 1961; and b) Council of Europe Convention on the Avoidance of Statelessness in the Context of State Succession 2006. 5