Birth Registration and Consular Assistance in Egypt and Morocco 7 Introduction Requirements to show identity documents are ever more pervasive, and those who lack such documents find it increasingly difficult to operate in any society, even if their legal status as citizens is unquestioned. Those whose do not have documents confirming regular migration status may face arrest or summary deportation, even if they have been living in the same country for decades—or generations. Those who are not recognised as nationals of any state—who are stateless—are most excluded of all, lacking, as Hannah Arendt said, a country that ‘wants even to oppress them’.1 As more and more children are born in a country that is not one where either parent holds nationality, the recognition of their right to a nationality becomes more fragile. This recognition depends not only on the laws of the state where they are born and on the laws of the state(s) of their parents’ nationality, but also on the procedural safeguards and registration systems in place to recognise these connections in practice. There is a growing literature on the role of identification and identity documents among settled populations as tools both of empowerment and of control.2 Scholars and policy makers have also paid significant attention to identity documents as a means of managing the movement of people, whether in support of stronger systems or denouncing their impacts.3 The recent availability of biometric and digital forms of identification has encouraged initiatives, realised to different extents, to provide innovative systems of identification, including for those on the move.4 Yet, while there has been some research that shows the lack of identity documents as a factor of vulnerability that goes beyond the simple fact of living as a refugee or migrant, even with irregular status,5 there is little pubHannah Arendt, ‘The Decline of the Nation-State and the End of the Rights of Man’ in Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Meridian, 1958). 2 For example, James C. Scott, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999); Jane Caplan and John Torpey, eds, Documenting Individual Identity: The Development of State Practices in the Modern World (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001); Colin J. Bennett and David Lyon, eds, Playing the Identity Card: Surveillance, Security and Identification in Global Perspective (London/New York: Routledge, 2008); Keith Breckenridge and Simon Szreter, eds, Registration and Recognition: Documenting the Person in World History, Proceedings of the British Academy 182 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). 3 In the context of the European Union, for example, Elspeth Guild and Sergio Carrera, ‘EU Borders and Their Controls: Preventing Unwanted Movement of People in Europe?’ CEPS Essays No. 6, Centre for European Policy Studies, 14 November 2013. Available at https://www.ceps.eu/publications/eu-borders-and-their-controls-preventing-unwanted-movement-people-europe 4 For example, the ID2020 initiative, at https://id2020.org/; see also Emrys Schoemaker, Paul Currion, and Bryan Pon, ‘Identity at the Margins: Identification Systems for Refugees’, Caribou Digital, 2018; Alan Gelb and Anna Diofasi Metz, Identification Revolution: Can Digital ID be Harnessed for Development? (Washington DC: Brookings Institution and Center for Global Development, 2018); World Bank, World Development Report 2016: Digital Dividends, Washington DC, 2016. 5 For example, ‘Conditions and Risks of Mixed Migration in North East Africa: Study 2’, North Africa Mixed Migration Task Force, 2015. Available at http://www.mixedmigrationhub.org/wp-content/ uploads/2015/11/Conditions-and-Risks-in-Mixed-Migration-in-North-East-Africa.pdf; Silvère Konan & Harouna Mounkaila, ‘Migrants en détresse: Analyse de situation et cadre de protection: Le cas du Niger et du Togo’, UNHCR and IOM, July 2013. Available at https://www.humanitarianresponse.info/system/ 1