UNHCR's comments on the proposed amendments to the Croatian Citizenship Act I. INTRODUCTION 1. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Representation in Croatia (hereafter “UNHCR”), is grateful to the Ministry of Interior of the Republic of Croatia for the opportunity to express views on the Proposal for the amendments to the Croatian Citizenship Act (hereafter the “Proposal”)1 dated 24 October 2018. 2. The UN General Assembly has entrusted UNHCR with a global mandate to identify and protect stateless persons and for preventing and reducing statelessness.2 It has specifically requested UNHCR “to provide technical and advisory services pertaining to the preparation and implementation of nationality legislation to interested States”.3 Furthermore, UNHCR’s Executive Committee has requested UNHCR to provide technical advice with respect to nationality legislation and other relevant legislation with a view to ensuring adoption and implementation of safeguards, consistent with fundamental principles of international law, to prevent the occurrence of statelessness which results from, inter alia, arbitrary denial or deprivation of nationality, restrictions applied to parents in passing on nationality to their children or denial of a woman’s ability to pass on nationality to her children.4 UNHCR thus has a direct interest in monitoring national legislation of countries impacting on the prevention or reduction of statelessness, including implementation of safeguards contained in international human rights treaties, as well as those set out in the 1961 Convention.5 3. The following comments are thus based on international standards on statelessness set out in particular in the 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons6 and 1 Proposal of the Act on Amendments to the Croatian Citizenship Act, available at: https://esavjetovanja.gov.hr/ECon/MainScreen?entityId=9171. 2 UN General Assembly Resolution A/RES/50/152, 9 February 1996, available at: http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/3b00f31d24.html; Reiterated in subsequent resolutions, inter alia, A/RES/61/137 of 25 January 2007, available at: http://undocs.org/en/A/RES/61/137, A/RES/62/124 of 24 January 2008, available at: http://undocs.org/en/A/RES/62/124 and A/RES/63/148 of 27 January 2009, available at: http://undocs.org/en/A/RES/63/148. 3 UN General Assembly Resolution A/RES/50/152, 9 February 1996, available at: http://www.un.org/documents/ga/res/50/ares50-152.htm. 4 UNHCR’s Executive Committee Conclusion 106, paras. (i) and (j) . 5 Croatia acceded to the 1961 Convention on 22 September 2011. For more, see Act on Accession of the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, Official Gazette 8/2011, available at: https://narodnenovine.nn.hr/clanci/medunarodni/2011_06_8_66.html. 6 UN General Assembly, Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, 28 September 1954, United Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 360, p. 117, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6b3840.html. 1