European States’ Obligations to Repatriate the Children Detained in Camps in Northeast Syria States the acquisition of nationality by a child born to a national abroad is conditional on meeting additional criteria and can be granted only upon registration or declaration of the birth.221 Notably, some European States have also enacted laws to make exceptions to the automatic acquisition of nationality in case of birth abroad, specifically targeting children born in conflict areas to national parents believed to be affiliated with ISIS (see Section II.C. on structural discrimination).222 When the nationality is acquired subsequent to birth through a decision made by the relevant authorities, registration or declaration often becomes a condition of the acquisition of nationality. This means that, despite the fact that a child who was born abroad to a national parent is entitled to acquire the nationality of their parent’s State of nationality, they are not recognized by that State as a national until the official birth registration procedure is completed. 223 Currently, many European children detained in the camps in northern Syria face a significant risk of being arbitrarily precluded from obtaining or retaining their European nationality, leaving them at risk of becoming stateless. Some of the children born in Syria of unknown parentage have an “undetermined/unknown nationality,”224 a problem faced especially by orphaned, abandoned, or otherwise unaccompanied children. 225 The situation Ethno-Cultural Membership. Preferential Admission Policies of EU Countries”, PhD thesis, European University Institute, December 2012, p. 127; Maarten Vink, “Citizenship Policies in the EU” in eds. D. Besharov and M. Lopez, “Adjusting to a World in Motion: Trends in Migration and Migration Policy,” Oxford University Press, 2016, pp. 212-214. 221 These countries include for example Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Cyprus, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Kosovo, Latvia, Macedonia, Malta, Montenegro, Portugal, Russia, Serbia, Slovenia, United Kingdom, Turkey. See: Globalcit, “Global Database on Modes of Acquisition of Citizenship”, version 1.0. San Domenico di Fiesole: Global Citizenship Observatory / Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies / European University Institute, 2017. 222 For example, in Denmark, the parliament recently approved legislation which provides that children of Danish parents who are born in areas where a ‘terrorist organization’ is fighting in an armed conflict should no longer automatically become Danish citizens. See: DW, “Denmark Approves Stripping IS Fighters of Citizenship”, 24 October 2019; France 24, “Denmark to deprive jihadists' children of citizenship,” 28 March 2019; Meghan Benton and Natalia Banulescu-Bogdan, “Foreign Fighters: Will Revoking Citizenship Mitigate the Threat?”, Migration Policy Institute, 3 April 2019. 223 UNHCR, “Nationality and Statelessness: Handbook for Parliamentarians N° 22”, July 2014, pp. 10-11. 224 See Human Rights Committee’s first decision on the right of children to a nationality that addresses the matter of unknown nationality: HRComm, “Zhao v. The Netherlands,” CCPR/C/130/D/2918/2016, 19 October 2020, para. 8 225 For more information about the term “unaccompanied children” see: CRC, “General Comment No. 6 (2005): Treatment of Unaccompanied and Separated Children Outside their Country of Origin”, CRC/GC/2005/6, 1 September 2005, para. 7-8. “More than 500 children (in the camps) are orphaned or otherwise unaccompanied.” See: RSI, “Europe’s Guantanamo: The Indefinite Detention of European Women and Children in North East Syria”, 2020, para. 17. See also: N. Houry, “Children of the Caliphate: What to Do about Kids Born under ISIS”, HRW, 23 November 2016; OCHA, “Syria: Humanitarian Response in Al Hol Camp, Situation Report No. 4 – As of 29 May 2019,” OCHA, May 2019, p. 2. The subsequent OCHA report found that by mid-June 502 of these children had been identified, and 207 of them had been “reunified”; 77 were, as of June 2019, still in interim care centres 41