18 Journal on Migration and Human Security 8(1) Articles 12 to 32 of the 1954 UN Convention establish a broad range of civil, economic, social, and cultural rights for states to accord to stateless persons. The 1954 UN Convention divides these rights into the following categories:  Juridical status (including personal status, property rights, right of association, and access to courts)  Gainful employment (including wage-earning employment, self-employment, and access to the liberal professions)  Welfare (including rationing, housing, public education, public relief, labor legislation, and social security)  Administrative measures (including administrative assistance, freedom of movement, identity papers, travel documents, fiscal charges, transfer of assets, expulsion, and naturalization) The 1961 UN Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness principles, they will, in the medium to long term, eradicate statelessness. Under the provisions of the 1961 UN Convention, children are deemed to be born in the territory of a state if they are found there or are born on a ship or aircraft registered to that state. Contracting states cannot withdraw their nationality from a person as a result of voluntary renunciation or a change in the personal status of a person such as marriage, termination of marriage, legitimation, recognition, or adoption unless the person concerned possesses or acquires another nationality. If the law of a contracting state provides for loss of its nationality by a person’s spouse or children as a consequence of that person losing or being deprived of that nationality, such loss shall be conditional on their possession or acquisition of another nationality. The Convention prohibits a contracting state from depriving a person of his or her nationality if this would render the person stateless. To this general principle, there are only limited exceptions, including when the nationality was obtained by misrepresentation or fraud, when the person has acted inconsistently with his or her duty of loyalty to the state, or when the person has made a declaration of allegiance to another state. Article 9 of the 1961 UN Convention prevents the deprivation of nationality on discriminatory grounds such as racial, ethnic, religious, or political grounds. When territory is transferred between states that are parties to the 1961 UN Convention, they must include treaty provisions designed to ensure that no person becomes stateless as a result of the transfer. A contracting state shall use its best endeavors to ensure that any such treaty it enters into with a state that is not a party to the Convention includes such provisions. In the absence of such provisions, a contracting state to which territory is transferred must confer their nationality on persons who would otherwise become stateless as a result of the transfer. The international community recognized the need for a universal instrument that prevents and reduces statelessness well before general human rights treaties began to include measures directed to that end. The 1961 UN Convention6 seeks to achieve this goal by requiring state parties to provide a safety net for persons who would otherwise be stateless. Article 1 of the 1961 UN Convention deals with the grant of nationality. State parties must grant their nationality to a person who would otherwise be stateless if that person was born in their territory, either automatically or at a later time through registration. A contracting state shall grant its nationality to a child born outside its territory if one of its parents was a national of the state at the time of the birth. These provisions recognize both jus soli and jus sanguinis — a principle of nationality law by which citizenship is determined not by place of birth but by having one or more parents or grandparents who Regional Legal Framework on Statelessness are citizens of the state — as a basis for preventing state- At the continental level, there is no express reference to lessness. If the citizenship laws of states recognize these the right to a nationality in the African Charter for Human and People’s Rights. The 1990 African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACRC) partly 6 UN (United Nations General Assembly), Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, August 30, 1961, United Nations addresses this gap, because it provides for the acquisition Treaty Series, vol. 989, p. 175, https://www.refworld.org/docid/3 of nationality of the country of birth if the child would ae6b39620.html. otherwise be rendered stateless (ACRC 1990). This right