28 6.2 Refugee Law Initiative Working Paper 76 Lobbying for Domestication of the CRC and the 1961 Convention A genuine contribution to ending childhood statelessness begins by building positive legal precedent, which begins by giving litigators and courts the laws to do so. This paper recommends actions to better a stateless child’s chances in any given jurisdiction, but not all actions can be taken in a courtroom. The way to ensure litigation complies with international obligations is by having child-friendly proceedings at the national level.189 This can be achieved through domestication of international treaties, in this case the most important being the CRC and the 1961 Convention. Litigators and courts must be able to rely upon binding law. Thus, stateless children would benefit from renewed, targeted lobbying efforts advocating complete incorporation of the CRC and the 1961 Convention. “Litigation has to be seen in an eco-system of other ways of trying to change things.”190 Shifting the law involves legislators, courts, executive powers, and the will of society. A state in which these moving parts are in alignment on any issue may never exist, but a solid first step will be found in a state’s national law. Strategic litigation is difficult to participate in,191 and is even harder without binding law. One expert noted that often “the working premise seems to be you pay lip service to international law, but it rarely is a key component of a court’s decision making.”192 If that international law becomes national law, however, it is decidedly more difficult to ignore. This recommendation to lobby for domestication is not the first of its kind, but UNHCR’s #IBelong campaign and its “redoubling efforts” have shown the louder and more frequent the voices, the better.193 Although statelessness still exists, the efforts of UNHCR’s campaign have resulted in some success: additional ratification of the Statelessness Conventions; legislating stronger law to protect the stateless; granting nationality to resolve certain dire statelessness situations, and; “enact[ing] laws to help ensure that no child is born stateless.”194 There is no reason that targeted lobbying for domestication of the CRC and the ratification/ domestication of the 1961 Convention cannot also be met with some success. Acknowledging that a 100 percent incorporation by states is unlikely, a verbatim adoption of CRC Article 7 and the first four articles of the 1961 Convention would be a solid start. Even a state-crafted law clearly mandating nationality for all children would help prevent ambiguity or misinterpretation in courts. “It’s not difficult. It’s one sentence in the law. It can be done.”195 Actions 2 and 7 of UNHCR’s Statelessness Policy brief consider ensuring no child is born stateless and birth registration to be vital, and this recommendation if heeded fulfills these directives.196 What this lobbying looks like depends upon the jurisdiction, but the participation of NGOs, attorneys, and stateless persons can further shape this specific conversation. Although presently other national and international instruments such as the ECHR are relied upon by litigators and courts, they often do not directly bestow a right to nationality. Reliance upon ECHR Article 8 is promising;197 however, the CRC and the 1961 Convention spell out in clear, black-letter law a state’s obligations to combat statelessness specifically and safeguard children. These treaties – that all (CRC) or most (1961 Convention) of Europe has already ratified – should be domesticated by states so they can be enforced by the courts. “[U]nder domestic law, the judiciary is the ultimate guarantor of fundamental rights.”198 Relevant laws therefore must be available to the judiciary to fulfill that role. 189 Executive B (n 72). 190 Scholar A (n 67). 191 Executive B (n 72). 192 Barrister (n 70). 193 UNHCR (n 2); UNCHR (n 3). 194 UNCHR (n 2) 3. 195 CRC Chair (n 73). 196 UNHCR (n 2). 197 European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), ‘Guide on Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights’ (31 August 2024) <https://ks.echr.coe.int/documents/d/echr-ks/guide_art_8_eng> accessed 11 March 2025; Genovese v. Malta App no 53124/09 (ECtHR, 11 Oct 2011). 198 Venice Commission (n 160) para 115.