birth either automatically at birth or later upon application, which may be subject to the lawful and habitual residence on the territory for a period not longer than five years immediately preceding the application. 11. Furthermore, Principle 2 of Recommendation CM/Rec (2009)13 of the Committee of Ministers on the nationality of children allows to require a lawful residence by providing “that children born on their territory who otherwise would be stateless acquire their nationality subject to no other condition than the lawful and habitual residence of a parent”. 12. Article 2 of the 1961 Convention and Article 6 (1)(b) of the ECN both provide that a foundling found on the territory of a state should acquire the nationality of that state. Children found abandoned on the territory of a state must be treated as foundlings and accordingly acquire the nationality of the country where found.8 Article 2 of the 1961 Convention does not define an age at which a child can be considered a foundling. The 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 underscore that at a minimum, the safeguard for contracting states to grant nationality to foundlings should apply to all young children who are not yet able to communicate accurately information pertaining to the identity of their parents or their place of birth.9 If a state provides for an age limit for foundlings to acquire nationality, the age of the child at the date the child was found is decisive and not the date when a child came to the attention of the authorities10. Nationality acquired by foundlings pursuant to Article 2 of the 1961 Convention and Article 6 ECN should only be lost if it is proven that the child concerned possesses another state’s nationality.11 13. A child born in the territory of a contracting state without having a parent, who is legally recognised as such (e.g. because the child is born out of wedlock and the woman who gave birth to the child is legally not recognised 8. See also Principle 8 of Recommendation CM/Rec(2009)13 of the Committee of Ministers on the nationality of children; Mai Kaneko-Iwase, Nationality of Foundlings, Avoiding Statelessness Among Children of Unknown Parents Under International Nationality Law, Springer 2021. 9. See UNHCR Guidelines on statelessness No. 4, para. 58. 10. Ibid, para. 60. 11. Compare with Article 7(1)(f ) ECN: if later the child’s parents or the place of birth are discovered, and the child derives a citizenship from (one of ) these parents or acquired a citizenship because of his place of birth, the citizenship acquired because of the foundling provision may be lost. However, according to Article 7(3) such discovery may never cause statelessness. Issues at stake: international standards and stocktaking of national situations ► Page 9