European States’ Obligations to Repatriate the Children Detained in Camps in Northeast Syria meet burdensome administrative requirements to acquire a nationality. 243 The highly burdensome DNA requirement in itself is an unreasonably high threshold of evidence and requiring it runs against the protective mandate States have over the best interest of the child, creating a policy that is virtually impossible for individuals in the camp to meet, thus making any legal protection practically inexistent. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (“UNHCR”), in establishing guidelines for the protection of stateless populations, has delineated an obligation by States “to consider all available evidence, oral and written, regarding an individual’s claim,”244 and underlined that special consideration is needed in situations that require shifting the burden of proof to the party with access to said evidence. Generally in the case of statelessness determination “the burden of proof is in principle shared, in that both the applicant and examiner must cooperate to obtain evidence and to establish the facts.” 245 Given the nature of statelessness, applicants for statelessness status are often unable to substantiate the claim with much, if any, documentary evidence, let alone DNA evidence. This applies to both the process of repatriating the children from the camps and the process of determining their parentage, where the applicant has a duty to be “truthful and to submit all evidence reasonably available,”246 but where securing a DNA test is an unsurmountable task. UNHCR has noted that “further flexibility is also warranted where it is difficult for individuals to obtain documents,”247 advising States to adopt a “reasonable” standard of proof, as required in refugee status determination.248 Therefore, European States should lower their standard of evidence of nationality and adopt flexible rules of evidence. 249 European States should, HRComm, “X.H.L. v. Netherlands,” Views on Communication No. 1564/07, CCPR/C102/D/1564/2007, 22 July 2011, para. 10.2. 244 UNHCR, “Handbook on Protection of Stateless Persons,” 30 June 2014, para. 87. 245 Ibid, para. 89. 246 Ibid. 247 Ibid. 248 Ibid, para. 91. 249 Note that sometimes a country may be willing to lower its standard of evidence for proving nationality, e.g. in the context of a readmission agreement with another country, see: “List of Documents for Indirect Evidence of Nationality” in Annex 3 to the 2006 Agreement between the European Community and the Russian Federation on Readmission, cited in UNHCR, “Handbook on Protection of Stateless Persons,” 30 June 2014, footnote 163. Also note that: “Definite proof of nationality, which frequently cannot be supplied by the requesting state, or only at disproportionately high cost, cannot be demanded, as this would constitute a frustration of the state’s obligation to admit. As a result, a state is not permitted to refuse the readmission of persons, whose nationality has been substantiated, for purely formal reasons,” see: Kay Hailbronner, “Readmission Agreements and the Obligation on States under Public International Law to Readmit their Own and Foreign Nationals”, Zeitschrift für ausländisches öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht, Heidelberg Journal of International Law, Volume 57, Issue 1, 1997, pp. 14-15. See, also: 243 45