status of people who migrated to the territory before the transfer of sovereignty who are not recognised by the newly formed states: for example, in relation to the break-up of the former Yugoslavia or the Soviet Union, the status of migrants within the European empires in Africa at the time of decolonisation, or the creation of the new states of South Sudan or Eritrea. Among the most notorious cases where state succession has resulted in statelessness is the secession of Eritrea from Ethiopia in 1993, following a referendum agreed between the two territories. Just five years later, in 1998, a border dispute escalated into war. Ethiopia forcibly expelled tens of thousands of people of Eritrean heritage, arguing that those who had registered to take part in the referendum on Eritrean independence in 1993 had thereby lost their Ethiopian nationality. In 2004, an independent Claims Commission established to adjudicate claims by each state against the other held that Ethiopia’s actions in denying recognition of Ethiopian nationality to those who had become dual nationals had been arbitrary and unlawful.345  On the particular context of alleged dual nationality in case of a person who should rather be considered stateless see discussion of the term statelessness u section 2.1 and u section 7.1. 7.8. Birth registration and legal identity KEY MESSAGES • The right to birth registration for all children is well established in international human rights law and has been repeatedly confirmed by international and regional treaty bodies and courts. • Registration and recognition of other civil status events and legal identity more generally, including issue of necessary identity documents, does not have such an explicit foundation in the treaties. However, there is significant jurisprudence holding that registration and recognition of legal identity is a component of the right to dignity in the human rights treaties. • Litigation is challenging aspects of new biometric identification systems in relation not only to data protection and privacy but also the potential discriminatory impacts of such systems. Birth registration Birth registration is critical for the prevention of statelessness. Birth certificates are a key form of evidence of a person’s right to nationality under a national law because they are legal recognition of the identity of a child’s parents, and the place and date of birth.346 (Birth registration is not, however, a complete solution to statelessness, which depends also on the necessary protections being established in national law and policy347 u section 7.2) Birth registration is a right in international law348, and in many countries also a right at national level. Universal birth registration is, even if not a right, the avowed target of almost all governments—established as such by the Sustainable Development Goals.349 The right to birth registration has been repeatedly stressed in general comments and other guidance on treaty interpretation by the UN human rights institutions.350 The African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child also provides for the right to birth registration, and a General Comment of the African Committee of Experts provides Partial Award (Civilian Claims: Eritrea’s Claims 15, 16, 23, and 27–32), Eritrea-Ethiopia Claims Commission, 28 April 2004, paras 71-78, available at the website of the Permanent Court of Arbitration. https://pca-cpa.org/en/cases/71/. 345 UNHCR, ”Good Practices Paper Action 7: Ensuring birth registration for the prevention of statelessness” 2017, https://www.refworld.org/reference/themreport/unhcr/2017/en/122586. 346 See also, Bronwen Manby, “‘Legal Identity for All’ and Statelessness: Opportunity and Threat at the Junction of Public and Private International Law”, Statelessness & Citizenship Review Vol. 2, no. 2 (2020), pp. 248–71. 347 348 ICCPR, Art. 24; CRC, Art. 7; CMW Art. 29; CRPD Art. 18. 349 SDG Target 16.9: Provide legal identity for all, including birth registration, https://indicators.report/targets/16-9/. UN Human Rights Council, Resolution 19/9: Birth Registration and the Right of Everyone to Recognition Everywhere as a Person before the Law (United Nations 2012) A/HRC/RES/19/9; UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, General Comment No 11: Indigenous Children and Their Rights under the Convention (United Nations 2009) CRC/C/GC/11; UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, General Comment No. 21: Children in Street Situations (United Nations 2017) CRC/C/GC/21; UN Committee on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, General Comment No. 2: The Rights of Migrant Workers in an Irregular Situation and Members of Their Families (United Nations 2013) CMW/C/GC/2; UN Committee on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families and UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, Joint General Comment No. 4 and No.23: State Obligations Regarding the Human Rights of Children in the Context of International Migration in Countries of Origin, Transit, Destination and Return(United Nations 2017) CMW/C/GC/4-CRC/C/GC/23. A complaint was submitted in 2019 to the UN Human Rights Committee on the right to birth registration and a name under Article 24 of the ICCPR, based on the refusal of the Albanian authorities to accept a Greek birth certificate which did not record the names of the children because they were in irregular migration status at the time. The case was not yet decided at the time of publication of this report. Rexha and Faslliu v. Albania, UN Human Rights Committee, Case No. 3602/2019, case summary at: https://caselaw.statelessness.eu/caselaw/human-rights-comittee-rexha-and-faslliu-v-albania. 350 80 U N H C R | L I T I G AT I N G T H E R I G H T T O A N AT I O N A L I T Y: A G U I D E F O R P R AC T I T I O N E R S