Report on Citizenship Law: Syria fathers the right to obtain nationality after ten years of residency in the country. Unfortunately, they were unsuccessful again.44 After this the most recent initiative took place before the conflict in 2010, when a proposal was presented asking again for gender equality in the nationality legislation. However, not long after this the conflict erupted and therefore there has been no indication of whether these debates progressed after this application. Outside of Syria the debate about amending the law has continued. Most recently, in 2017, Syria responded to criticisms from the Committee on the Rights of the Child regarding the discriminatory Nationality Law by stating that, “There are no stateless children in the Syrian Arab Republic … Granting nationality to children of Syrian mothers married to non-Syrians, Article 3 of the Nationality Act is currently being reviewed and great efforts are being made to ensure that children of Syrian mothers may obtain nationality. The General Women’s Federation has drafted a bill for the amendment of that article under which women would pass on their nationality to their offspring. The bill is currently being examined”. 45 However, apart from this one statement from the regime there has been no public indication that this has been happening. The authorities themselves went on to say that “the crisis affecting the Syrian Arab Republic has delayed discussion on the subject and the enactment of a relevant law”.46 Other than discrimination there has been little debate on issues of progressing the law. During the conflict there were several debates in Syrian media on Dunia TV – a Syrian proregime channel – where the concept of depriving Syrian opposition figures of their nationality was openly discussed as a viable option for getting rid of those who were not seen as loyal. The debates did not develop further from media debates and there was no indication that these types of ideas were being debated in the political circles. Other than these, there are currently no pending bills or framework laws that have not been adopted yet, nor has the present government announced reforms in its government programme. It would be important to observe the constitutional committee47 of Syria develop in terms of discussing citizenship issues for a future Syria. 5. Conclusions It is clear that the current situation in Syria renders it difficult to analyse the real impact of gaps and flaws in the countries citizenship laws and policies. It also makes it difficult to assess any potential opportunities taken to address the problem of statelessness and flawed citizenship policy in the country. Syria is undergoing an extended period of political turmoil and the nature of future dynamics or potential for further agreements to be established is impossible to predict. However, despite this, several concluding remarks can be made on the basis of the analysis presented in this report. In terms of nationality legislation, there are two prominent issues that are obstructing access to nationality and contributing to statelessness. The first of these is the gender inequality evident in nationality legislation that, aside from 44 M. Isou. Women in Syrian Law, 2010 Article in Thara E-Magazine No 233, 2010, access at http://www.tharasy.com/TharaEnglish/modules/news/article.php?storyid=248. 45 Committee on the Rights of the Child, Fifth periodic report submitted by the Syrian Arab Republic, 2017, available at: https://undocs.org/pdf?symbol=en/CRC/C/SYR/5. 46 Committee on the Rights of the Child, List of issues in relation to the fifth periodic report of the Syrian Arab Republic – Addendum - Replies of the Syrian Arab Republic to the list of issues, 2018, available at: https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/treatybodyexternal/SessionDetails1.aspx?SessionID=1226&Lang=en. 47 Security Council Briefing on the Situation in Syria, Special Envoy Geir O. Pedersen. UN Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs. RSCAS/GLOBALCIT-CR 2021/15 - © 2021 Author(s) 15