The ACERWC only ruled on this case in 201171 (noting that “being stateless as a child is generally the antithesis of the best interests of children”72) while the ACHPR only gave its ruling in 2015,73 but these cases kept the injustice of the situation of the Nubians and other similar groups very much in the public eye. Reports by the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights74 and by human rights NGOs75 also highlighted the many challenges faced by minorities when it came to documentation. Once the basic principles were established by the 2010 Constitution, the 2011 Citizenship and Immigration Act (2011 Act), which replaced the 1963 nationality legislation, detailed the procedures to be followed. Article 9 of the 2011 Act established a procedure for presentation of a child of unknown parents appearing to be under eight years old to the government department responsible for children, which would then investigate the origins and identity of the child. If the child’s identity could not be established, Article 9 stated that the department “shall present the child found to the Children’s Courts and take out proceedings for the determination of the age, nationality, residence and the parentage of the child,” after which the court should issue an order directing that the child be presumed to be a citizen by birth, or whatever other order it thinks fit.76 Children’s courts had been established by the 2001 Children Act as special divisions of the magistrates’ courts with less formal procedures and a focus on the best interests of the child. The implementing legislation for the constitutional provisions also created an avenue for long-standing stateless populations to apply for citizenship.77 Although implementation of the foundling provision (as well as other provisions relating to stateless persons) was slow, by 2015 some children’s courts had begun to issue orders in the case of abandoned infants brought to them by officials of the county offices for children, at least in Nairobi. Procedures for older children have yet to be established.78 Other legal reforms also remain outstanding. In 2011, the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child ruled in its very first decision, relating to the situation of Kenyan Nubian children, that the 2010 constitutional reforms were not in line with Kenya’s obligations under the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, in particular by failing to provide for a child who is not granted nationality by any other State at birth to acquire Kenyan citizenship.79 71 African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, Communication No.002/2009, Institute for Human Rights and Development in Africa (IHRDA) and Open Society Justice Initiative on behalf of children of Nubian descent in Kenya vs. Kenya (the “Kenyan Nubian Children’s case”), decision adopted 22 March 2011. 72 African Committee on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, Nubian Minors v. Kenya, Decision, 22 March 2011. 73 African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, Communication 317/2006, The Nubian Community in Kenya v. Kenya, decision adopted 28 February 2015 (published May 2016). 74 Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, An Identity Crisis? Study on the Issuance of National Identity Cards in Kenya, 2007; Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, Out of the Shadows: Towards Ensuring the Rights of Stateless Persons and Persons at Risk of Statelessness in Kenya, 2010. 75 For example, Kenya Human Rights Commission (an NGO established before the KNCHR), Foreigners at Home: The Dilemma of Citizenship in Northern Kenya, 2009. The Citizenship Rights in Africa Initiative, an informal pan-African grouping of NGOs, also made extensive submissions on the 2010 text, available at http://citizenshiprightsafrica.org 76 Kenya Citizenship and Immigration Act, 2011, Section 9. The Child Welfare Society of Kenya, previously an NGO, was appointed as a State corporation responsible for the care of abandoned or separated children, though without a specific mandate on citizenship, through The Child Welfare Society of Kenya Order, Legal Notice No. 58, 2014. 77 Kenya Citizenship and Immigration Act, 2011, Sections 15 and 16; Legal Notice No. 178, Extension of Time. 78 Interviews, Nairobi County Children’s Office, 6 August 2015. 79 Article 6(4) of the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child provides that “States Parties to the present Charter shall undertake to ensure that their Constitutional legislation recognize the principles according to which a child shall acquire the nationality of the State in the territory of which he has been born if, at the time of the child’s birth, he is not granted nationality by any other State in accordance with its laws.” See note 72, Kenyan Nubian Children’s case, ACERWC. See also, Comments on the Citizenship Provisions of the Draft Kenyan Constitution (draft dated 23 February 2010), Citizenship Rights in Africa Initiative, 5 March 2010; Kenya: Submission to the Task Force on Citizenship and Related Provisions of the Constitution, Citizenship Rights in Africa Initiative, 13 April 2011; Kenya: Comments on the draft Citizenship and Immigration Bill, 2011, Citizenship Rights in Africa Initiative, 17 May 2011. 18 CAMPAIGN TO END STATELESSNESS WITHIN 10 YE ARS