CCPR/C/130/D/2918/2016 in the registry, including 13,000 children, many of whom had been born in the Netherlands.2 As at September 2016, the total number of “unknown” nationality entries was 74,055, which included 13,169 children under 10 years of age.3 2.5 On 12 July 2012, the author’s mother submitted a request to the civil registration department of the municipality of Utrecht for the author to be recorded in the registry as stateless rather than of “unknown nationality”. On 17 September 2012, the municipality rejected the request, on the ground that there was no proof that the author lacked a nationality. In the municipality’s view, it had to be established, with official legal or State-issued documents, that the author was stateless, that is, that he was not a Chinese national. It therefore presumed that the author was a Chinese national, based on its reading of Chinese law. 2.6 The author’s mother lodged an administrative appeal against the municipality’s decision. On 22 November 2012, the administrative appeal was rejected, on the ground that there was no proof of the author’s statelessness, such as official documents from Chinese authorities confirming that the author did not have Chinese citizenship. The author’s mother appealed the negative decision to the district court of Midden-Nederland. The court denied the appeal, in a decision dated 12 April 2013, in which it emphasized that the burden of proof of lack of nationality rested on the author, with the municipality having no responsibility to investigate the matter. The author appealed this decision to the Council of State. On 21 May 2014, the Administrative Law Division of the Council of State, the highest appeal court in the country, ruled that the municipality was correct when it decided that the author had not adequately demonstrated that he was stateless. The Council of State concluded that neither national nor international law contained any rules regarding procedures for establishing statelessness that the State party’s authorities were obliged to follow. It further found that it was not up to the authorities to conduct inquiries and determine statelessness status. The Council of State did, however, acknowledge that the lack of a status determination procedure meant that individuals entitled to protection, including children, were falling through a gap in legislation. However, the Council of State concluded that it was for the legislature to provide a remedy, noting that “as long as the statelessness of persons without nationality has not been determined, they cannot invoke protection based on the statelessness conventions and the Dutch legislation pursuant to those conventions. However, it goes beyond the lawmaking task of the judiciary to fill in this gap.” 2.7 The author notes that without being registered as stateless he cannot acquire Dutch nationality. Furthermore, even if he were to be successful in changing his registration from “unknown nationality” to stateless, he would still have no clear means of acquiring Dutch nationality, as the State party requires that children born stateless in the country hold a lawful residence permit for at least three years before they are eligible to apply for Dutch nationality.4 He notes that this position contravenes the obligations of the Netherlands as a party to the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, under which States may only impose habitual residence requirements.5 He notes that the State party has acknowledged that its law is not in line with the 1961 Convention. 2.8 On 26 March 2015, the author applied to the municipality of Katwijk for recognition as a Dutch citizen, arguing that he should be allowed to access nationality despite his lack of registration as a stateless person and his lack of a residence permit in the Netherlands. In rejecting the application, the Mayor of Katwijk acknowledged that the State party lacked a status determination procedure, without which it would be impossible for the author to establish that he was stateless. Like the Council of State, the Mayor concluded that it went beyond his responsibilities as a mayor to make that determination. The appeals commission upheld the Mayor’s decision on 15 September 2015, stating that there was no procedure to 2 3 4 5 GE.21-00755 Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Mapping Statelessness in the Netherlands, November 2011, para. 46. The author refers to information from the Central Bureau of Statistics (Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek). Nationality Act, art. 6 (1) (b). 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, art. 2 (b); and Katja Swider, “Statelessness determination in the Netherlands”, Amsterdam Law School research paper No. 2014-33 (May 2014). 3