ADDRESSING STATELESSNESS THROUGH THE RULE OF LAW 5. CONCLUSION AND KEY RECOMMENDATIONS As statelessness creates barriers to individuals’ enjoyment of human rights and their contributions to economies and national development, it creates a burden for both the people who suffer from a lack of nationality and for societies and governments more broadly. A rule of law approach is therefore necessary to address the problem of statelessness. The rule of law can help governments address the challenges of statelessness, meet their international obligations, and improve their development outcomes in line with the SDGs. There are clear steps that States and other actors can take to apply a rule of law approach to address statelessness in a way that also bolsters sustainable development aspirations and ensures individuals rights. Recommendations for States and development actors: 1. Ensure equality before the law • Remove discriminatory provisions and obstacles from nationality laws, rules and procedures, and review and reform laws, rules, and procedures in order to prevent the denial, loss, or deprivation of nationality on discriminatory grounds. • Reform laws, policies, and procedures to ensure equal and meaningful access to birth registration for all, including birth registration through safe and innovative technological solutions. • Implement respect for the right to a nationality and ensure compliance with international standards on statelessness through accession to the UN Statelessness Conventions and inclusion of essential safeguards against statelessness at birth and later in life in nationality legislation. 14 • Require local, sub-national, and national administrative bodies to strengthen and extend basic service provision to include stateless people and persons of undetermined nationality and include them in national development plans and projects. 2. Increase the capacity of rule of law institutions to address statelessness • Establish statelessness determination procedures for the identification of stateless persons in a migratory context to ensure they have access to a recognised legal status, basic rights, and facilitated naturalisation, in line with the 1954 Convention. • Promote awareness-raising about the root causes and consequences of statelessness for individuals, including those belonging to minorities, and support a human rights-based approach to solving these issues. • Strengthen judiciaries, enabling them to properly and independently adjudicate cases related to statelessness and educate lawyers on the issue and how to represent stateless clients. • Boost multilateral and bilateral investment to improve the capacity of States’ rule of law institutions to address statelessness. 3. Ensure stateless people have the knowledge and support to realise their rights, redress grievances and resolve disputes, in line with human rights standards • Foster and invest in grassroots efforts to strengthen the legal awareness and empowerment of stateless people • Protect civic space for mobilisation and advocacy for and by stateless people, including human rights defenders and communities • Ensure that efforts to build more people-centred justice systems account for the specific challenges and needs of stateless people and other non-citizens and are able to protect and fulfil their rights. 4. Champion decision-making mechanisms at all levels that include stateless people and take their needs and challenges into account • Develop and mainstream innovative mechanisms for the inclusion of stateless people in decision-making about the policy issues that affect their lives, including service provision, not only at the local level but also at the national and global levels. • Strengthen cooperation and consultation with representatives from stateless communities to better understand the obstacles they face in accessing legal identity and citizenship and use the outcomes of these consultations to develop tailored solutions to resolving statelessness amongst these communities.