the 1961 Convention,7 Conclusions on International Protection of the UNHCR Executive Committee,8 UNHCR Handbook on the Protection of Stateless Persons,9 UNHCR Handbook for Parliamentarians N° 29 on Good practices in nationality laws for the prevention and reduction of statelessness,10 and relevant guidelines.11 II. COMMENTS 4. UNHCR welcomes the efforts of the Government of Croatia to further improve the Croatian Citizenship Act (hereinafter the “Act”)12 in particular in relation to facilitating access to citizenship for children. 5. UNHCR notes that the Proposal primarily aims to facilitate acquisition of Croatian citizenship for Croat emigrants as a measure of demographic revitalization. The Proposal also contains changes relating to acquisition and renunciation of Croatian nationality potentially leading to situations of statelessness. UNHCR comments will solely concentrate on proposing safeguards to prevent instances of statelessness. A. Acquisition of citizenship 6. According to the Proposal, revised Article 4 of the Act should read as follows: “A child acquires Croatian citizenship by origin: 1) if one of his or her parents is a Croatian citizen at the time of the child's birth and the child is born in the Republic of Croatia; 2) if he or she has foreign citizenship or has no citizenship and the child is adopted by Croatian citizens. A person acquires Croatian citizenship by origin if born abroad and one of the parents at the moment of the person’s birth was a Croatian citizen, provided that 7 UN General Assembly, Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, 30 August 1961, United Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 989, p. 175, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6b39620.html. 8 UNHCR, UNHCR’s Executive Committee Conclusions on Statelessness, updated 2010, available at: http://www.unhcr.org/protection/statelessness/41b4607c4/executive-committee-conclusions-relatingstatelessness.html 9 UNHCR, Handbook on Protection of Stateless Persons, 30 June 2014, available at: http://www.refworld.org/docid/53b676aa4.html. 10 Inter-Parliamentary Union and UNHCR, Good practices in nationality laws for the prevention and reduction of statelessness, Handbook for Parliamentarians N° 29, November 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5be41d524.html. 11 UNHCR, Guidelines on Statelessness No. 4: Ensuring Every Child's Right to Acquire a Nationality through Articles 14 of the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, 21 December 2012, HCR/GS/12/04, available at: http://www.refworld.org/docid/50d460c72.html. 12 Act on Croatian Citizenship, Official Gazette 53/91, 70/91, 28/92, 113/93, 4/94, 130/11, 110/15, available at : http://eudocitizenship.eu/NationalDB/docs/CRO%20Law%20on%20Croatian%20Citizenship_consolidated%2028_1 0_2011_ENGLISH.pdf. 2