In order to strengthen nationality systems and address the risk of statelessness caused by historical and contemporary migration, the priorities for action by ECOWAS and its Member States should be:      The removal of provisions in the law and requirements in administrative procedures that discriminate on the grounds of gender, race, religion or ethnicity. Accession to the international conventions to prevent and reduce statelessness and protect stateless persons, and the implementation of the safeguards against statelessness contained in these treaties into their national laws, especially the attribution of the nationality of the country of birth to a child who is otherwise stateless. The further reform of nationality laws to create in all states at least some basic rights to nationality that derive from birth and residence as a child in that country: that is, to create a way in which the children of migrants may be integrated into the national community (even if the parents are not naturalised). The reform of naturalisation procedures to make them accessible to a far wider number of people, and in particular to the nationals of other ECOWAS states, including refugees and former refugees. The establishment of procedures within countries and in collaboration between countries to determine the nationality of individuals where their status is in doubt; and, in those cases where no existing nationality can be determined, to provide a status of “stateless person”, and the facilitation of naturalisation for those who are stateless. Minimum standards for the content of nationality laws are already established by the UN human rights treaties, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child, as well as the Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons and the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. UNHCR has provided a set of Guidelines on Statelessness that provide authoritative interpretation of the obligations under these treaties.1 In addition, the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child provides in its Article 6 for every child to have the right to a name, to be registered at birth and to a nationality; the Committee of Experts responsible for the treaty has recently adopted a General Comment on states’ obligations under this article. The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights has also initiated a process to draft a protocol on the right to a nationality in Africa. ECOWAS and its Member States have the opportunity to be leaders in these processes both by participating in the African Union processes, and by developing their own norms and best practices within the subregion. Currently, the approach of those involved in identity management systems and their reform is usually to focus on preventing the fraudulent acquisition of documents by those who are not entitled to them. This is important. However successful measures to end statelessness will depend on the reconceptualisation of the problem to focus equally on ensuring that every person has a nationality and effective access to proof of that nationality. This will require efforts to create an integrated nationality system, in which investments in civil registration, electoral registration, national identity cards, border management and other related initiatives are seen as linked parts of the same whole. Achieving such an integrated system will require not only coordination within and among ECOWAS 1 Available with many other resources at the REFWORLD website thematic page on statelessness: http://www.refworld.org/statelessness.html. 3