Joint Submission to the Human Rights Council at the 41st Session of the Universal Periodic Review. The Netherlands Introduction 1. ASKV Refugee Support, the Bhutanese Community in The Netherlands (BCN), New Women Connectors (NWC), Petkovski, Stichting Landelijk Ongedocumenteerden Steunpunt, Leiden University, Kinderrechtencollectief (The Dutch NGO Coalition for Children’s Rights), Vluchtelingenwerk Nederland (Dutch Council for Refugees), the European Network on Statelessness (ENS), and the Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion (ISI) make this joint submission to the Universal Periodic Review (UPR), on the right to a nationality and human rights challenges pertaining to statelessness in the Netherlands.1 2. This submission focuses on challenges for stateless persons in relation to the following issues: I. Children’s right to a nationality II. Identification of stateless persons, determination of statelessness, and access to rights III. Access to (facilitated) naturalisation IV. Statistical data on statelessness Previous UPR recommendations to the Netherlands 3. The Netherlands was reviewed during the 27th session in 2017 (Third Cycle), the 1st session in 2008 (Second Cycle), and the 13th session (First Cycle). In the Third cycle only, the Netherlands received a recommendation from Haiti directly related to statelessness. The Netherlands was urged to ‘expedite efforts to introduce a statelessness determination procedure and provide persons recognised as stateless with legal status and access to basic human rights, in full consultation with key stakeholders’.2 To date, the Netherlands does not have a dedicated statelessness determination procedure (SDP) in place, but in December 2020 a Draft Law was submitted to Parliament that would establish an SDP.3 However, the legislative proposal has serious shortcomings, as further explained under Issue II. 4. During both the Second4 and Third Cycle5, four recommendations were issued to the 1 See Annex I for an overview of all co-submitting organisations. This submission also draws on information received from M. Van Burik (individual ENS member). 1 See https://index.statelessness.eu/country/netherlands 2 A/HRC/36/15, recommendation 131.197 made by Haiti, which was accepted by the Netherlands. 3 https://www.tweedekamer.nl/kamerstukken/wetsvoorstellen/detail?cfg=wetsvoorsteldetails&qry=wetsvoorstel%3A35687. 4 A/HRC/21/15, paras 98.1- 98.4. Recommending countries are Mexico, Argentina, Belarus, Algeria, Iran, Egypt. 5 A/HCR/36/15, paras 131.1 - 131.4. Recommending countries are Syrian Arab Republic, Chile, Sudan, Philippines, Bangladesh, Guatemala, Algeria, Uganda, Ghana, Egypt, Sri Lanka, Burkina Faso. 1