57. Almost 72 per cent of registered stateless persons, including those of Indonesian origin, were born in or after 1992 and are therefore still children.78 Case law In 2003 the District Court in The Hague had to decide in the case of a Somali applicant for a “no fault” permit, where the respondent (the IND) had rejected the application because it considered the applicant to be a Somali national.79 The case concerned the questions whether a) the applicant could be considered to be stateless and b) a “no fault” permit could be issued to de facto stateless persons. The court found that for more than 20 years there had been no effective authority in Somalia. It held that the respondent had not properly argued why, in these circumstances, the applicant was not stateless. The respondent had referred to “policy” for refusing a “no fault” permit. However, the “policy” as formulated in the Aliens Guidelines did not refer at all to de facto statelessness. The court held that hence the respondent could not have relied on the “policy” in refusing a “no fault” permit. Stateless persons without a residence permit 58. According to the CBS data, a clear majority almost 65 per cent (or 1,299 persons) of registered stateless persons did not hold a residence permit on 1 January 2010.80 Though strictly speaking the 1954 Convention does not oblige States to grant residence to stateless persons (see chapter 4), this is a striking percentage nonetheless. If, however, we filter out the Moluccans with quasi-Dutch citizenship, who are registered as without a residence permit as mentioned in paragraph 54 above (presumably 754 individuals), what remains is 545 stateless persons of non-Indonesian descent without a residence permit – 27 per cent of the total number of registered stateless persons, but still a significant number of people. 59. Children of Somali parents stand out among them. As noted above, Somali children are regularly registered as stateless by the Netherlands due either to Somalia’s discriminatory laws or to the view that its statehood is questionable. A large majority of these 545 persons were born in the 2000s. It thus seems safe to conclude that the problems of this particular group usually started at birth. In this context, Article 1 of the 1961 Convention, requiring a contracting State to grant its nationality to a person born in its territory to persons who would otherwise be stateless and indeed Article 7 of the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which provides that all children should be able to acquire a nationality, would apply.81 UNHCR therefore recommends that the particular situation of this group be investigated further and citizenship be granted as necessary, to ensure that the Netherlands upholds its obligations under these conventions. 78 CBS, data not available on Statline but on file with UNHCR. 79 Rechtbank ’s-Gravenhage, 27 June, 2003, LJN AI0720. 80 CBS, data not available on Statline but on file with UNHCR. Article 7 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, ratified by the Netherlands, reads: “1. The child shall be registered immediately after birth and shall have the right from birth to a name, the right to acquire a nationality and, as far as possible, the right to know and be cared for by his or her parents. “2. States Parties shall ensure the implementation of these rights in accordance with their national law and their obligations under the relevant international instruments in this field, in particular where the child would otherwise be stateless.” 81 26 Mapping statelessness