2022 Statelessness & Citizenship Review 4(1) the Refugee Convention.10 Here, it is necessary to recall the abiding commitment of the drafters of the Refugee Convention to ensure that refugees should not be prejudiced by the lack of a nationality. 11 For some stateless children born outside the country of nationality or former habitual residence of their parent(s), there may well be some remedy under the statelessness regime, in particular, where state parties who have acceded to the 1954 Statelessness Convention and 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness (‘1961 Statelessness Convention’) have implemented statelessness determination procedures or otherwise.12 However, the complex reality of nationality laws and customs means that even when state parties intend, in good faith, to honour their obligations under the Statelessness Conventions, many stateless children born outside their parent(s) country of nationality or former habitual residence remain in legal limbo, without access to either the statelessness or refugee protection regimes. Recalling, too, the principles of non-discrimination that underpin the Refugee Convention, it is imperative that a stateless child born outside the country of nationality or former habitual residence of their parent(s) and presenting with a claim to the discriminatory denial of a nationality, in effect, their right to have rights,13 or some other discriminatory deprivation of human rights occasioning serious harm, should not be denied the opportunity to test a claim to refugee status. Even where access to a statelessness regime is possible, having the ability to seek and enjoy refugee protection would enable access to a more comprehensive set of rights at the national level than would ensue from a statelessness determination procedure, and for this reason, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (‘UNHCR’) recommend in cases where determinations may be made under both regimes that claims under the Refugee Convention proceed first.14 As such, it is practically relevant to ensure that the criterion ‘of being outside of the country of former habitual residence’ included in the refugee definition is not interpreted literally in a way that automatically excludes all stateless children born outside the country of nationality or former habitual residence of their parent(s) from the scope of application of the Refugee Convention. This predicament for stateless children born outside the country of nationality or former habitual residence of their parent(s) largely stems from their invisibility in the drafting of the refugee definition and in subsequent jurisprudence in the ensuing decades. They were, in effect, left at the doorstep of the Refugee Convention, where state parties commonly employed an ‘adult-focused lens’ to the interpretation of a country of former habitual residence. However, heightened awareness around child rights, precipitated by the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child (‘CRC’),15 has seen an expansion in age-sensitive jurisprudence — as 10 11 12 13 14 15 Atle Grahl-Madsen, ‘Protection of Refugees by Their Country of Origin’ (1986) 11(2) Yale Journal of International Law 362, 390. Ad Hoc Committee on Statelessness and Related Problems, Summary Record of the TwentyFourth Meeting Held at Lake Success, New York, on Friday, 3 February 1950 at 2.30pm, UN Doc E/AC.32/SR.24 (3 February 1950) 11. Handbook on Protection of Stateless Persons under the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons (UNHCR 2014) 45–49 [126]–[139] (‘UNHCR Handbook’). See, eg, 1954 Statelessness Convention (n 6) arts 12–24; Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, opened for signature 30 August 1961, 989 UNTS 175 (entered into force 13 December 1975) art 1 (‘1961 Statelessness Convention’). Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 1973) 296–97. UNHCR Handbook (n 12) 31–32. Convention on the Rights of the Child, opened for signature 20 November 1989, 1577 UNTS 3 (entered into force 2 September 1990) (‘CRC’). 10