Both the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons include provisions on “administrative assistance” intended to govern the recognition (Article 12) or substitution (Article 25) of personal status documents relating to events that took place in another country, including delivery of “such documents or certifications as would normally be delivered to aliens by or through their national authorities.” This would presumably include such measures as “re-certification” of marriages and other civil status events. Although there is extensive guidance on the best practices in establishing civil registration systems, there is almost nothing in international law on the right to registration of civil status events other than births.365 There is also little guidance on the practical steps required to fulfil the obligations for “administrative assistance” under the refugee and stateless persons conventions.366 For the right to registration of other civil status events necessary for proof of nationality, it may be necessary to call on the concepts of legal identity and recognition as a person before the law. Dignity, (legal) identity and recognition as a person before the law A range of international human rights standards, starting from Article 6 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, reinforced by Article 16 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, establish that everyone has the right to recognition as a person before the law. The terminology used to describe this right varies in different international and regional instruments, but includes juridical personality, (legal) identity, or legal status. Article 8 of the CRC establishes the child’s right “to preserve his or her identity, including nationality, name and family relations as recognised by law.” It also places an obligation on states to re-establish identity if “a child is illegally deprived of some or all of the elements of his or her identity.”367  In communications concerning Article 8, the Committee on the Rights of the Child has stated that Denmark could not deport a child to China because the child would not be able to establish recognition of identity in China through enrolment in the household registration system known as hukou.368  In cases against Spain, it has found violations of Article 8 in connection with the incorrect recording of a child’s age.369  In a concurring opinion in the DZ case before the UN Human Rights Committee, the particular seriousness of a violation of Article 16 of the ICCPR was emphasised by committee member Achour: “The State party’s behaviour in the present case is of such gravity as to fall within the scope of article 16 of the Covenant, for it amounts almost to denial of recognition as a person before the law.”370 The three regional human rights systems have all held that nationality and other forms of legal status in a country are important components of the right to legal identity. In the case of the Inter-American Court on Human Rights, this is supported by the inclusion of nationality within the American Convention on Human Rights, in addition to the right to “juridical personality”, recognition as a person before the law (Articles 2 and 20). The Inter-American Court has emphasised that “a stateless person, ex definitione, does not have recognised juridical personality, because he has not established a juridical and political connection with any State”; thus for a stateless individual, “the failure to recognise juridical personality harms human dignity”.371 The right to a nationality is not explicitly included in either the European Convention on Human Rights, nor the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (although it is included in the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child). Nevertheless, the responsible treaty bodies consider that legal status in a country may be a 365 See 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. See James C. Hathaway, The Rights of Refugees under International Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), chap. 3.2.4 and 4.10; article 25 is also considered in UNHCR, Summary Conclusions on the Right to Family Life and Family Unity in the Context of Family Reunification of Refugees and Other Persons in Need of International Protection (Geneva: United Nations, 2017), https://www.refworld.org/docid/5b18f5774.html; Frances Nicholson, “The ‘Essential Right’ to Family Unity of Refugees and Others in Need of International Protection in the Context of Family Reunification” (Geneva: UNHCR, 2018), https://www.unhcr. org/protection/globalconsult/5a8c413a7/36-essential-right-family-unity-refugees-others-need-international-protection.html. 366 367 Manby, “Legal Identity for All” supra 13. Ssee also Jaap E. Doek, “Article 8: The Right to Preservation of Identity; Article 9: The Right Not to Be Separated from His or Her Parents”, in A Commentary on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, ed. André Alen et al. (Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2006), https://doi.org/10.1163/ej.9789004148642.i-32. WMC v. Denmark, Communication No. 31/201, Committee on the Rights of the Child, views adopted 3 November 2020, CRC/C/85/D/31/2017, https:// juris.ohchr.org/Search/Details/2748. 368 COC v. Spain, Communication No. 63/2018, Committee on the Rights of the Child, views adopted 24 February 2021, CRC/C/86/D/63/2018, https://juris. ohchr.org/Search/Details/2948. The Committee has adopted a number of similar decisions in relation to age assessment -- see list of cases concerning Article 8 available at https://juris.ohchr.org/search/results/2?sortOrder=Date&typeOfDecisionFilter=3&countryFilter=0&treatyFilter=0. 369 370 Individual opinion of Committee member Yadh Ben Achour (concurring), in DZ v. The Netherlands, supra n 53. 371 Case of the Girls Yean and Bosico, supra n 52, paras 178 and 179. 82 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