Joint Submission to the Committee on the Rights of the Child at the 89th Pre-Sessional Working Group. Civil society submission on the right of every child to acquire and preserve a nationality under Article 7 and 8 of the Convention of the Rights of the Child (CRC) in accordance with the Guiding Principles to the Convention Netherlands Introduction 1. The Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion (ISI)1 and ASKV Refugee Support (ASKV)2 welcome the opportunity to make this submission to the Committee on the Rights of the Child (hereafter the Committee) regarding the Netherlands’ compliance towards every child’s right to acquire a nationality under Article 7 and preserve their nationality under Article 8 CRC.3 This submission also draws on the Guiding Principles of the Convention, in particular, the freedom from discrimination (Article 2) and the best interests of the child (Article 3).4 2. Annex I to this submission contains previous recommendations to the Netherlands on the child’s right to a nationality, for ease of reference of the Committee. Annex II provides information about the cosubmitting organisations. 3. This submission is based on the extensive work and research carried out by the submitting organisations on the issue of realising the right of every child to acquire a nationality in the Netherlands. In this thematic submission, we provide: • comments on the Netherlands’ Periodic Report (combined fifth and sixth Periodic Reports) to the Committee, as well as on its Statistical Report,5 both submitted on 5 November 2020,6 in 1 See further https://www.institutesi.org/about-us See further https://www.askv.nl/about-askv/ 3 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child, Articles 7 and 8 4 Ibid Articles 2 and 3 5 See https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/binaries/rijksoverheid/documenten/publicaties/2020/11/05/statistical-information-and-data-answers-to-questions34-54/statistical-information-and-data-answers-to-questions-34-54.pdf 6 See https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/binaries/rijksoverheid/documenten/rapporten/2020/11/05/report-of-the-kingdom-of-the-netherlands-answers-toquestions-1-33/report-of-the-kingdom-of-the-netherlands-answers-to-questions-1-33.pdf 2 1