Nationality and Cases of Statelessness in the Middle East and North Africa lack of nationality, i.e. statelessness. Nor should every child who lacks a birth certificate be considered at real risk of statelessness. Yet, lacking proof of the facts of birth can make it difficult for a person to establish their claim to a nationality and when combined with other factors – such as migration, state succession or belonging to a population that experiences discrimination – may lead to them not being considered as a national by any state.199 Birth registration therefore remains an important tool in the prevention of statelessness and where there are problems with access to this procedure, problems of non-recognition of nationality may follow. With the Syrian conflict causing vast numbers of the refugees to flee to Lebanon, a new problem related to this complicated civil registry system has developed. Syrian personal status law sets out that registration abroad is to be conducted under the jurisdiction of the State in which the Syrian is in. Due to the complexitiy of the procedure explained above, the difficulty that refugees face in ensuring that they have all the neccessary documents (especially as they are considered ‘illegal immigrants’ in Lebanon) and with refugees not prioritizing registration, this is 199 - See also UNHCR, Birth Registration: A Topic Proposed for an Executive Committee Conclusion on International Protection, 9 February 2010; UNHCR, Conclusion on civil registration, No.111(LXIV)-2013, 17 October 2013. 152