Birth registration and the prevention of statelessness in Europe In 2023, North Macedonia introduced amendments to the Law on Civil Registry, which mandate the immediate registration of every child born on the territory no later than 45 days after birth, irrespective of the nationality or residence status of the parents. The changes also introduced a simplified and facilitated procedure for late birth registration for those cases identified by the State in 2018 and 2019. Further changes to the Law on Registration of Residence and the Law on Identification Documents introduced a simplified procedure to register residence at the address of a social welfare centre for those who live in informal settlements or are homeless, to help facilitate access to legal identity. Barriers to accessing immediate birth registration were disproportionately impacting on Romani communities in the country, so these changes represent important progress towards preventing and reducing statelessness among Roma, as well as others in situations of vulnerability, in North Macedonia. Children born in transit and on the move There are also new and emerging areas of good practice with regards to the situation of children in migration who are born in transit to a country of asylum and their births have not been registered in the country of birth. In such situations, the country of asylum may be the only country able to register the birth of the child, if the country through which the family passed in transit and where the child was born does not have any record of their presence in the country. Courts in Spain have upheld the rights of such children to be registered in the host country to facilitate their birth registration, access to rights on an equal basis with other children, and to prevent statelessness, recognising that the child would otherwise remain without any registration which is not in their best interests. The Court of Appeal of Gipuzkoa in Spain, in its judgment no. 341/2022 dated 11 May 2022, held that, to respect the fundamental rights and best interests of a child born abroad on route to Spain whose birth had not been registered in any other country, they should be registered by the Central Civil Registry in Spain. The court noted that the registration of birth is essential for the child to have a legal identity, acquire a nationality, and prevent a violation of their fundamental rights. This judgment explicitly invoked the right to a nationality as recognised in Article 15.1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and emphasised the best interests of the child to counter the Ministry of Justice’s appeal. The Court argued that allowing the child to continue in a state of statelessness would place her in a situation of inequality with respect to other minors, with a significant reduction in her basic and fundamental rights. 22 9