Litigation Toolkit on Statelessness: Volume I October 2022 then grant them an adequate protection status and rights in line with international human rights law. 6 States should also take steps to prevent new cases of statelessness arising and reduce existing cases of statelessness, by establishing facilitated routes to naturalisation for stateless persons and implementing strong safeguards in their nationality laws to prevent statelessness in acquisition and loss of nationality. The 1961 Convention obliges States to contribute to the reduction of statelessness “by setting out general rules for the prevention of statelessness, and simultaneously allowing some exceptions to those rules”. 7 It does so by establishing safeguards against statelessness in various contexts, including acquisition of nationality at birth and later in life, loss of nationality, and deprivation of nationality. One of the key provisions of the 1961 Convention is a safeguard to prevent statelessness at birth which requires States to grant nationality to children born on their territory who would otherwise be stateless, with some conditions allowed. Core regional instruments in Europe also include the Council of Europe’s statelessness conventions. The 1997 European Convention on Nationality (ECN) explicitly provides for the right to a nationality, and sets out the principles that statelessness should be avoided and that no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of their nationality. Other relevant provisions of the ECN include the principle of non-discrimination, rules for acquisition of nationality, naturalisation, rules concerning the loss and recovery of nationality, and principles relating to State succession and nationality. The 2006 Convention on the Avoidance of Statelessness in Relation to State Succession provides several safeguards to prevent statelessness within the context of State succession, which remains a major source of statelessness globally. Beyond these four core statelessness conventions, a range of other international and regional instruments contain norms relating to nationality and statelessness, including: • • • • • • • • • International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (Article 24.3) International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (Articles 2.2 and 3) Convention of the Rights of the Child (Articles 2, 3, 7 and 8) Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (Article 9) International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (Article 5(d)(iii)) Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment Convention on the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (Article 18) Universal Declaration on Human Rights (Article 15) Ibid. UN Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, 30 August 1961 (1961 Convention), Introductory note by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR): https://www.unhcr.org/ibelong/wp-content/uploads/1961-Convention-on-the-reduction-ofStatelessness_ENG.pdf. 6 7 5