Too old to be a ‘foundling’? – International standards and comparative analysis – Table 2: Foundling Provisions of UN Member States by Region Note: As of 13 December 2024. Only states with explicit foundling provisions are included. Several states with provisions which possibly or indirectly apply to foundlings excluded, e.g. Greece’s nationality law Article 1(2) (c), which grants nationality to a ‘child is of unknown citizenship’ born in Greece. By UNHCR-classified Regions No. of UN member States with Explicit Foundling Provisions Total no. of UN Member States in the Region Percentage of States with Foundling Provisions Middle East and North Africa 17 18 94% Europe Africa Asia and the Pacific Americas Total 46 34 26 19 142 48 48 44 35 193 96% 71% 59% 54% 74% D. Reference to Other Treaties including CRC Article 31(3)(c) of VCLT provides that, along with context, ‘any relevant rules of international law applicable in the relations between the parties’ shall be ‘taken into account’. According to ILC, ‘relevant rules’ encompass ‘all the sources of international law, including custom, general principles, and, where applicable, other treaties’.58 Mark E Villiger noted that ‘[t]hese rules need have no particular relationship with the treaty other than assisting in the interpretation of its terms. On the whole, they will provide a contemporary interpretation of the ordinary meaning of a term’ 59 and referenced the ICJ Advisory Opinion on Namibia above. This article in section III.C refers to the provisions of the 1930 Convention to infer the basic definition of the term ‘foundling’. The 1930 Convention is the first international treaty to focus on the prevention and reduction of statelessness, and its Article 14 codifies the grant of nationality to foundlings (determined to be an international customary law norm in section II.C above). The provisions of the 1930 Convention were referred to throughout the drafting process when developing the 1961 Convention,60 thus providing useful background to examine the provisions of the 1961 Convention. Given that all contracting states (82 states) to the 1961 Convention are also parties to the CRC, Benyam Mezmur, among others, refers to Article 7 of the CRC as being of paramount importance in determining the scope of Articles 1 to 4 of the 1961 Convention (along with regional instruments, such as the 1990 ACRWC). This article, therefore, makes reference to other relevant treaties and standards related to the right to nationality (as referred to in sections II.A, B and C)61, when interpreting Article 2 of the 1961 Convention. 58 ILC, Fragmentation of International Law (n 15), para 426(b) 87. Section 4.4 <https://legal.un.org/ilc/documentation/english/a_cn4_ l682.pdf>. Gardiner, Treaty Interpretation (n 15) 326. 59 Mark E Villiger, Commentary on the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (Martinus Nijhoff Publishers 2009) 432 (footnotes omitted). 60 United Nations, Summary Records, 9th Plenary Meeting held on 15 April 1959, A/CONF.9/SR.9, UN Conference on the Elimination or Reduction of Future Statelessness, Geneva, 1959 and New York, 1961 (15 April 1959) 3-4. The 1930 Convention is also referred to throughout Córdova, Nationality, including Statelessness (n 50) and Hudson, Report on Nationality (n 50); United Nations Economic and Social Council, The Problem of Statelessness-Consolidated Report by the Secretary-General, A/CN.4/56 and Add.1 (26 May 1952); United Nations, A Study of Statelessness (August 1949). van Waas, Nationality Matters (n 38) 41-42. 61 See Laura van Waas, ‘The UN statelessness conventions’, Alice Edwards and Laura van Waas eds., Nationality and Statelessness Under International Law (Cambridge University Press 2014) 86, footnote 89. European University Institute 16