Childhood Statelessness i European Courts: An Avoidable Crisis 1. 3 Introduction “Unlike many of humanity’s challenges, statelessness is solvable.”1 “We know it is solvable.”2 1.1 Research Context and Relevance Statelessness exists as a crisis many states acknowledge and claim can be eliminated, yet it continues to affect millions of people, many of them children.3 According to the Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, those who are “not considered as a national by any State under the operation of its law” fall into this category.4 For the children impacted, almost always forced into statelessness through no fault of their own, the deprivation of nationality is accompanied by a denial of access to sufficient medical care, to education, and to an identity. In Europe specifically, childhood statelessness should be rendered nonexistent under the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) to which all European states are parties, the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness to which most are parties, and various other international and domestic obligations to which European states have committed themselves. However, tens of thousands of stateless children, and likely many more who are unaccounted for, are born every year.5 In Europe, litigation serves as one weapon with which to combat childhood statelessness and the resulting human rights violations. In a best-case scenario, litigation may facilitate the provision or protection of a child’s nationality; in a worst-case scenario, children may become or remain stateless in addition to the creation of new and potentially damning precedent in that jurisdiction. This paper questions whether certain elements of litigation sway an outcome in either of these two directions. This research is not concerned with specific legal arguments or analysis set forth before or by a court; instead, it explores the practical construction of childhood statelessness cases and the legal characteristics of European jurisdictions that affect these vulnerable litigants. This paper intends to shed light on certain aspects of European childhood statelessness litigation with hope to benefit stateless child litigants and their advocates. 1.2 Research Questions In order to accomplish the above goal, the primary research question this paper sought to address is: What lessons may be learned from existing European childhood statelessness litigation and applied or avoided in the future? The secondary research questions proposed to examine this topic are: 1. Is there a particular litigation structure, process, or pattern that emerges in cases pertaining to childhood statelessness in Europe? 2. What correlations can be drawn between litigation outcome and the characteristics of a given European jurisdiction? 1 Global Alliance to End Statelessness (Global Alliance), ‘Welcome to the Global Alliance to End Statelessness’ (2024) <https://statelessnessalliance.org/blog/welcome-to-the-global-alliance-to-end-statelessness/> accessed 20 January 2025, para 1. 2 UNHCR, ‘Statelessness Policy brief’ (August 2024) <www.unhcr.org/ibelong/wp-content/uploads/Statelessness-Policy-Brief-2024-final. pdf> accessed 20 January 2025, 4. 3 UNHCR, ‘Redoubling our efforts on ending statelessness: UNHCR’s Strategic Plan 2023-2026’ (2023) < www.unhcr.org/sites/default/ files/2023-12/focus-area-strategic-plan-statelessness-2023-2026.pdf> accessed 20 January 2025. 4 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons (adopted 28 September 1954, entered into force 6 June 1960) 360 UNTS 177 (1954 Convention), para 1. 5 UNHCR, ‘I am here, I belong’ (November 2015) <www.unhcr.org/ibelong/wp-content/uploads/EN_2015_IBELONGReport_ePub17.pdf> accessed 20 January 2025.