Too old to be a ‘foundling’? – International standards and comparative analysis – (2) Australia (3) Azerbaijan (4) Belarus Section 14 of the Australian Citizenship Act of 2007 states ‘A person is an Australian citizen if the person is found abandoned in Australia as a child, unless and until the contrary is proved’. <https://www.legislation.gov.au/C2007A00020/ latest/text>. According to Professor Kim Rubenstein of the Faculty of Business Government and Law at the University of Canberra, author of Australian Citizenship Law and consultant to the government in its development of the 2007 Act, a child for the purposes of all sections of the Australian Citizenship Act is a person as defined under section 3 of the Act, and while the age is not defined directly, is a person under the age of 18. Email on file with the author, 28 September 2024. It is also noted that in a Federal Court of Australia (FCA)’s decision in 2015 in examining the applicability of the previous version of the foundling provision i.e. section 5(3)(b) of the 1948 Citizenship Act containing the same term ‘when a child’, while mentioned only as obiter dictum, the Court effectively affirms the fact that the claimant, who was already 16 years old at the time when he was separated from his mother, was (found) abandoned in Australia ‘when a child’. Para 24 of Nicky v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection [2015] FCA 174 [5 March 2015] as well as para 29 of Nicky v Minister for Immigration [2014] FCCA 2569 (12 November 2014). (Note: However, the claimant was denied nationality due to birth abroad/possession of another nationality. See Mai Kaneko-Iwase, Nationality of Foundlings (2021) sec 6.3, p.243, 261, 279, 289-293) Article 13 of the nationality law states ‘A child, who lives on the territory of Azerbaijan and both parents of whom are unknown, is a citizen of Azerbaijan Republic. Law of 1998 on Citizenship of the Azerbaijan Republic, 30 September 1998 <http://e-qanun.az/framework/3187> According to Ms. Asima Nasirli, a lawyer based in Azerbaijan (referred by a GLOBALCIT Azerbaijan Country Expert Dr. Maxim Tabachnik), Article 1 the Law of the Republic of Azerbaijan on Child’s Rights (19 May 1998) available at <https://e-qanun.az/framework/3292> defines a child as a person who has not reached the age of 18 (adulthood), and this definition applies to the term ‘child’ in Article 13 of the nationality law, and that the term ‘uşaqlar’ (children)/ ‘uşaq’ (child) in legal terminology in Azerbaijan always means a minor. Email exchanges between Ms. Asima Nasirli to the author, 9 January and 1 February 2024, on file with the author. Article 13 of the nationality law states ‘(…) A child who is situated on the territory of the Republic of Belarus and whose parents are unknown becomes citizen of the Republic of Belarus.’ Law on the Citizenship of the Republic of Belarus <http://world_of_law.pravo.by/text.asp?RN=H10200136>. Article 1 of the Belarus’s child rights law contains the definition of the term ‘child’ stating, ‘for the purpose of this Law a child is an individual who has not reached the age of eighteen years (majority) if, according to the law, she or he has not previously acquired civil capacity in full’. Law on the Rights of the Child of 19 November 1993 No. 2570-XII <https://cis-legislation.com/document.fwx?rgn=1844>. The definition of ‘child’ in Article 1 of the Law on the Rights of the Child is considered to govern that of Article 13 of the Law of Citizenship. Information obtained from UNHCR Representation in Belarus following a thematic email query on the definition of the child in Article 13 of the Law of Citizenship on 24 August 2022. European University Institute 32