Comment on the Zhao Case Nationality Code’s safeguards against statelessness. 39 In some such cases, UNHCR also changed the children’s status in its registration and on the cards issued to the families from ‘stateless (non-refugee)’ to ‘asylum seeker’, with the nationality no longer recorded as ‘None/stateless’ but as ‘Unknown’. For the Tunisia-born children of asylum seekers without nationality, these shifts are an arbitrary status change that takes them a step further from accessing Tunisian nationality through the safeguard against statelessness in art 8 of the Nationality Code.40 This context, combined with the strong protections for children’s right to a nationality in Tunisia’s domestic law, 41 provide a foundation on which further advocacy can build.42 CONCLUSION Zhao establishes a significant precedent, but it remains to be seen how easily the outcome can be translated into victories elsewhere. In practical terms, the universal application of the decision may be hampered by the limitations of the legal and institutional landscape in the MENA. This issue needs to be pushed to challenge violations of the same right: a nationality for all children, at birth, everywhere in the world. 39 40 41 42 Code de la Nationalité Tunisienne 2018, arts 8–9 (Tunisia). A child born in Tunisia to stateless parents who have resided in Tunisia for five or more years is a Tunisian citizen; a child born to unknown parents is also considered Tunisian by operation of law. Article 8 reads: ‘Est tunisien, l’enfant né en Tunisie de parents apatrides résidant en Tunisie depuis cinq ans au moins’. Law No 95–92 on the Protection of Children 1995, art 5 (Tunisia): ‘[e]very child has the right to an identity from birth. Identity consists of first name, surname, date of birth and nationality’. Another avenue for strategic advocacy, although beyond the scope of this commentary, would be through an individual petition to the Committee on the Rights of the Child. This is available because Tunisia, unlike the Netherlands, is a party to the Optional Protocol (n 7) allowing individual communications: see Ann Skelton, ‘UN Human Rights Committee: Denny Zhao v The Netherlands’ (Case Note 2021/8, Leiden Children’s Rights Observatory, 6 October 2021) <https://childrensrightsobservatory.nl/case-notes/casenote2021-8>. 153