5. Concluding remarks and recommendations The nationality legislation of Finland is comprehensive in terms of preventing statelessness when it comes to acquisition of Finnish nationality by descent, stateless children born in Finland and loss, renunciation and deprivation of Finnish nationality. Particularly commendable is the automatic grant of Finnish nationality for children born in Finland who would otherwise be stateless regardless of their residence status in Finland. Further, the determination of citizenship status procedure in place is generally well functioning and provides a solid framework, in particular in light of the interpretation of the purposes of the procedure formed by the jurisprudence, within which determination of statelessness can be undertaken and further developed. However, certain gaps in determining and defining statelessness, ensuring that stateless persons can enjoy the rights they are entitled to, as well as in compiling and maintaining data and statistics on stateless people have been identified. Therefore, in order to facilitate Finland’s full compliance with its obligations under the 1954 and 1961 Conventions and to ensure that stateless persons are able to enjoy the rights to which they are entitled, UNHCR makes the following suggestions and recommendations. The recommendations, rather than making any suggestions for fundamental changes, aim at improving the current framework. IT IS RECOMMENDED THAT SOME ASPECTS OF THE DETERMINATION OF CITIZENSHIP STATUS PROCEDURE ARE FURTHER DEVELOPED to better address the specific questions related to determination of statelessness. An unduly high standard of proof should not be imposed in the procedure, as it may prevent statelessness from being recognized and may thus frustrate the object and purpose of the 1954 Convention. The procedure should adopt an approach which better takes into account the challenges inherent in establishing statelessness. In particular, the burden of proof should be shared between the applicant and Migri, bearing in mind that the 1954 Convention only requires a negative to be proven, i.e. that the person is not considered as a national by any State under the operation of its law. Persons concerned have a responsibility to cooperate in establishing the facts but may face challenges accessing relevant documents and other evidence needed to prove the absence of their nationality. IT IS RECOMMENDED TO IMPROVE THE CONSISTENCY OF DETERMINING STATELESSNESS DURING THE ASYLUM PROCEDURE. Given the inconsistencies identified in the course of the mapping and the fact that there are generally challenges in determining citizenship in the asylum procedure, a review of the procedure, including the cooperation and coordination between the Asylum Unit and the Nationality Unit of Migri may be needed. In this context, further internal guidelines setting out the roles and responsibilities of the relevant authorities may be required. IT IS RECOMMENDED TO USE THE CATEGORY “UNKNOWN NATIONALITY” WITH CAUTION AND IN GENERAL LIMIT ITS USE AS FAR AS POSSIBLE, in order to avoid gaps in the identification of statelessness and ensure that stateless persons can enjoy the rights to which they are entitled. When “unknown nationality” is the initial assessment of the situation, further efforts should be made to assess the individual’s nationality status and resolve it as quickly as possible. Currently, a relatively large population 56 MAPPING STATELESSNESS IN FINL AND