but usage is not consistent. This Guide uses the terms applied in the relevant national context, and in the international law context distinguishes between attribution and acquisition, and between loss and deprivation of nationality, as outlined in this section. 2.5. Civil registration, birth registration and legal identity Civil registration does not have a definition established by treaty, but nonetheless has a longstanding and widely accepted definition in international policy as “the continuous, permanent, compulsory and universal recording of the occurrence and characteristics of vital events pertaining to the population, as provided through decree or regulation in accordance with the legal requirements in each country”.11 Birth registration, by extension, is “the continuous, permanent and universal recording, within the civil registry, of the occurrence and characteristics of births, in accordance with the legal requirements of a country”.12 The detailed content of civil registration and birth registration, including the specific “characteristics” to be recorded, has wide variation, as indicated by the proviso “in accordance with the legal requirements of a country”.13 Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Target 16.9 establishes the target to “provide legal identity for all, including birth registration”. The term “legal identity” did not have a pre-existing definition, but since the adoption of the SDG Target, the UN has established an operational definition: Legal identity is defined as the basic characteristics of an individual’s identity. e.g. name, sex, place and date of birth conferred through registration and the issuance of a certificate by an authorized civil registration authority following the occurrence of birth. In the absence of birth registration, legal identity may be conferred by a legally-recognized identification authority. This system should be linked to the civil registration system to ensure a holistic approach to legal identity from birth to death. Legal identity is retired by the issuance of a death certificate by the civil registration authority upon registration of death.14 Switzerland. Formerly stateless lawyer Neha Gurung. © UNHCR/Susan Hopper 11 UN Statistics Division, “Principles and Recommendations for a Vital Statistics System, Revision 3” (2014), para. 279, http://unstats.un.org/unsd/demographic/standmeth/principles/M19Rev3en.pdf. 12 UNICEF, “A Passport to Protection: A Guide to Birth Registration Programming” (2013), https://www.refworld.org/docid/52b2e2bd4.html. Discussed in 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. 13 14 United Nations Legal Identity Agenda, https://unstats.un.org/legal-identity-agenda/. 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 17