“To amend the Law on Citizenship and ensure that citizenship of Lithuania is granted to children born in the territory of Lithuania if their parents are stateless persons holding a residence permit, permanent or temporary.” 12 11. UNHCR further notes that the Law Proposal provides for a revised Article 18 (4) of the Law on Citizenship. The proposed amendment exempts children applying for the Lithuanian citizenship from the requirements to pass examinations in the Lithuanian language and the fundamentals of the Constitution of the Republic of Lithuania and to have legal means of subsistence. We understand that this provision is linked inter alia with the current Article 18 (2) of the Law on Citizenship which reads as follows: “ A stateless person who was born in the territory of the Republic of Lithuania may be granted citizenship of the Republic of Lithuania, provided he has been legally permanently resident in the Republic of Lithuania for the last five years, has not acquired citizenship of another state, has the right of residence in the Republic of Lithuania at the time of the application for the granting of citizenship of the Republic of Lithuania and the decision regarding the granting of citizenship of the Republic of Lithuania and meets the conditions listed in points 3, 4, 5 and 7 of paragraph 113 of this Article.” 12. It, therefore, appears that the proposed amendments aim at preventing cases of statelessness from arising in two ways. First, they provide for the automatic acquisition of the Lithuanian citizenship at birth by children who are currently excluded from the scope of Article 15 of the Law on Citizenship, i.e. children born to stateless parents who reside in Lithuania with temporary residence permits. Secondly, the amendments ease conditions for accessing the Lithuanian citizenship by way of an application procedure as set out in Article 18 (2) of the Citizenship Law for other children born stateless. It follows that the proposed amendments provide for a combination of modes of the acquisition of the Lithuanian citizenship, where children born to legally resident stateless persons would acquire the Lithuanian citizenship automatically at birth, while other categories of children born stateless would have to follow an application procedure, with eased requirements. 13. UNHCR acknowledges that the proposed amendments enhance access to the Lithuanian citizenship for children born stateless. However, with a view to supporting Lithuania’s efforts to fully meet the standards set out in the 1961 Convention and related obligations pursuant to other international human rights treaties to which Lithuania is a State Party, notably the 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child 14 (CRC), we recommend considering some further adjustments of the proposed provisions, as specified in details below. 14. First, with regard to the lawful residence condition which is retained in the proposed Article 15 (1) of the Law on Citizenship, UNHCR would like to note that the 1961 Convention permits the requirement of “habitual residence” only. In addition, as explained in the UNHCR Statelessness Guidelines No 4, the notion of habitual residence may not be interpreted to mean lawful residence, and the parents of the child concerned may not be required to possess a specific type of residence in the State.15 15. Furthermore, the provisions of the 1961 Convention must be read and interpreted in light of the international human rights law. In this respect, Article 7 of the CRC sets out that every child has the right to acquire a nationality, and Article 3 of the CRC further requires that all actions concerning children, including 12 UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), High-Level Segment on Statelessness: Results and Highlights, May 2020, page 63, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5ec3e91b4.html. 13 These conditions are the knowledge of the Lithuanian Language and the foundations of the Constitution, legal means of subsistence and non-applicability of exclusion clauses. 14 Lietuvos Respublikos Seimas, Dėl Jungtinių Tautų vaiko teisių konvencijos ratifikavimo, I-983 1995-07-03 available at: https://eseimas.lrs.lt/portal/legalAct/lt/TAD/TAIS.18370?jfwid=-y3rq82qzc. 15 UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Guidelines on Statelessness No. 4: Ensuring Every Child's Right to Acquire a Nationality through Articles 1-4 of the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, 21 December 2012, HCR/GS/12/04, (UNHCR Guidelines on Statelessness No. 4), paras 36 and 37, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/50d460c72.html. 3