2016] The Prevention and Reduction of Statelessness in Australia 481 attention to the issue and positive ‘actions of many States to prevent or reduce statelessness … new cases of statelessness [clearly] continue to arise.’138 4 Potential Barriers to Citizenship: Deficiencies in Birth Registration in Australia The final issue to consider in this context is a procedural one. Birth registration is an important tool for the prevention of statelessness because it establishes a legal record of where a child was born and to whom.139 If a birth is unregistered and access to nationality is not pursued, children may grow up to become stateless adults.140 Such adults are then incapable of conferring nationality on their own children, and statelessness may be perpetuated inter-generationally.141 The importance of birth registration is reflected in the fact that one of the ten UNHCR actions to end statelessness by 2024 is to ‘[e]nsure birth registration for the prevention of statelessness’.142 As the UNHCR acknowledges, ‘lack of birth registration on its own does not usually make people stateless’,143 but ‘[i]ndividuals can [certainly] be at risk of statelessness’ without it.144 The increased focus on birth registration as essential to establishing identity is also reflected in the fact that one of the Sustainable Development Goals ---- the goal to promote just, peaceful and inclusive societies ---- includes as a concrete objective the provision of ‘legal identity for all, including birth registration’, by 2030.145 138 UNHCR, Handbook on Protection of Stateless Persons, above n 10, 1. 139 UNHCR, ‘Birth Registration’ (Child Protection Issue Brief, UNHCR, August 2013); UNHCR, Guidelines on Statelessness No 4: Ensuring Every Child’s Right to Acquire a Nationality through Articles 1--4 of the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, UN Doc HCR/GS/12/04 (21 December 2012) 12 [55] (‘Guidelines on Statelessness No 4’). 140 UNHCR, Self-Study Module on Statelessness, above n 97, 19; Maureen Lynch and Melanie Teff, ‘Childhood Statelessness’ (2009) 32 Forced Migration Review 31; UNHCR, ‘Birth Registration’, above n 139; Simon Heap and Claire Cody, ‘The Universal Birth Registration Campaign’ (2009) 32 Forced Migration Review 20. 141 Inge Sturkenboom, Under the Radar and Under Protected: The Urgent Need to Address Stateless Children’s Rights (8 November 2012) European Network on Statelessness <http://www.statelessness.eu/blog/under-radar-and-under-protected-urgent-need-addressstateless-children%E2%80%99s-rights>. 142 UNHCR, Global Action Plan, above n 4, 3 (action 7). 143 Ibid 19. 144 Ibid 18. 145 UN, Goal 16: Promote Just, Peaceful and Inclusive Societies ---- Goal 16 Targets, Sustainable Development Goals: 17 Goals to Transform Our World <http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/peace-justice/>. As discussed in UN, The