Discrimination against Women and the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (Ukraine).9 III. Exert further efforts to ensure that all children born in the national territory are registered (Sudan). IV. Adopt measures to reduce the number of children without birth registration (Angola). Uganda noted the first two recommendations and accepted the third and fourth recommendations. National Law 11. Uganda does not have a dedicated statelessness determination procedure in place. The absence of such a procedure makes it difficult to identify groups (at risk) of statelessness, collect substantive quantitative data on statelessness in Uganda. Identifying stateless people in the country is the first step to providing them adequate protection and rights in line with international law. 12. Further, no safeguards exist in national law to prevent statelessness or adequately protect stateless persons.10 Uganda’s nationality laws have faced significant transformation since independence. The amendment of the independence Constitution in 1967 saw the removal of nationality acquisition based on a jus soli provision and the introduction of ethnicity-based citizenship, which was later partially restored in the 1995 Constitution, particularly for indigenous communities.11 The 1995 Constitution, as amended in 2005, is the current legal framework that regulates citizenship matters in Uganda. Nationality acquisition relies on a descent-based system, which limits the automatic transmission of citizenship by birth to: 12 - - ‘Every person born in Uganda [and] one of whose parents or grandparents is or was a member of any of the indigenous communities existing and residing within the borders of Uganda as at the first day of February 1926, and set out in the Third Schedule to this Constitution’; and ‘Every person born in or outside Uganda [and] one of whose parents or grandparents was at the time of birth of that person a citizen of Uganda by birth’. 13. According to the Constitution, foundlings acquire Ugandan citizenship by birth. A child, five years of age or younger, found in Uganda with unknown parents, is presumed to be a citizen of Uganda by birth. 14. The growth of the Ugandan diaspora post-independence has led to growing communities of Ugandans living abroad, and resulted in increasing tolerance of dual nationality. Article 12(b) of the Uganda Citizenship and Immigration Control Act (UCICA) provides that citizenship is automatically conferred to persons born outside Uganda if their parents or grandparents were at the time of the birth of that person a citizen of Uganda by birth.13 A/HRC/34/10, recommendation 117.51. Bronwen Manby, Statelessness and Citizenship in the East African Community, UNHCR, (September 2018), available at: https://data2.unhcr.org/en/documents/download/66807. 11 1995 Constitution of the Republic of Uganda. 12 1995 Constitution of the Republic of Uganda Article 10. 13 Uganda Citizenship and Immigration Control Act, Article 12(b). 9 10 3