2022 Statelessness & Citizenship Review 4(1) place,34 yet their application in practice remains in question. The situation is further complicated by the fact that despite being a party to the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, Tunisia has not implemented its obligations. For example, UNHCR still conducts Refugee Status Determination in Tunisia in the absence of a national refugee law. Recently, the Arab Institute for Human Rights (‘AIHR’) proposed a national action plan that outlines the deficiencies in the present framework and the measures required to protect stateless persons in Tunisia.35 The report signals the need to eliminate childhood statelessness in Tunisia by revising the existing art 8 of the Nationality Code, which provides a statelessness safeguard for those children born in Tunisia to stateless parents who have resided in Tunisia for over five years. The AIHR proposes eliminating the residency requirement and legislating for the automatic attribution of Tunisian nationality for children born in this situation. Tunisia’s international legal obligations further require granting Tunisian nationality to any child born in Tunisia who is unable to acquire another nationality, regardless of the parents’ status.36 The AIHR study underscores the readiness of Tunisian advocates and civil society to engage with the state to ensure that Tunisia protects stateless children per its international obligations, which is ultimately how strategic litigation achieves its ends. One profile of cases to which Zhao could be applied is children born to stateless asylum seekers from Libya, who have been arriving in Tunisia since the fall of the Ghaddafi regime in late 2011. These individuals — largely from the Tuwareg community — fled conflict and marginalisation in Libya and have encountered a perplexing legal and registration landscape in Tunisia.37 Individuals in this category who were interviewed by the authors of this commentary have applied for asylum in Tunisia. Given the absence of a domestic law on international protection for refugees or stateless persons, there is little prospect of a durable solution in Tunisia. While their lawful presence is documented by renewable refugee residence permits and UNHCR ID cards, some of these informants are being considered for resettlement. Some reported unexplained modifications in how UNHCR designates their nationality. Having been recorded as ‘stateless (non-refugee)’ for several years, they later saw their status change to ‘asylum seekers’ of ‘unknown citizenship’ in 2021, upon the renewal of their UNHCR identification cards.38 Children born to parents in this situation in Tunisia have been registered as of ‘unknown’ nationality by Tunisian authorities, despite the 34 35 36 37 38 Her Excellency Hasna Ben Slimane, Minister of Justice for the Republic of Tunisia highlighted this point at the League of Arab States regional workshop ‘Towards a Regional Action Plan on Belonging and Legal Identity’, 25 May 2021. Hafidha Chekir, ‘Statelessness in Tunisia: A Legal Study’ (Research Paper, Arab Institute for Human Rights and UNHCR, 2020). League of Arab States, Regional Toolkit on Nationality Legislation (Model Legislation and Commentary, May 2021) 6, 20. For background on the situation in Tunisia, see Boston University International Human Rights Clinic, ‘Confronting Uncertainty: Understanding Statelessness in Tunisia’, Medium (Blog Post, 29 March 2022) <https://buslahr.medium.com/confronting-uncertainty-understandingstatelessness-in-tunisia-6792b2b46134>. For more information on the Tuwareg (also commonly spelled as ‘Tuareg’, ‘Twareg’ or ‘Touareg’), see Minority Rights Group International, ‘Tuareg’, World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples (Web Page) <https://minorityrights.org/ minorities/tuareg>. According to our informants, these changes occurred in conjunction with refugee status determination interviews, following their requests for consideration to be given to their asylum claims. Some protested this change and insisted on having the word ‘stateless’ reinserted on UNHCR cards to accurately reflect their nationality status. 152