Preventing and Addressing Statelessness 125 child to enter a State.38 Such measures ensure respect for family unity and allow the child to stay with his or her intending parents rather than to be placed in institutional care. At the same time, ‘some States provide a degree of flexibility with their immigration rules to enable the child to enter the State in order that the position can be regularised once the child is “home”’.39 The EP study also identified the deepening of civil status mutual recognition and related proposals, which would result in the free movement of public documents and the creation of a European civil status office, as potential solutions to some of the practical issues raised by international surrogacy. As was noted in an earlier Green Paper, the EU is considering the feasibility of EU action to facilitate the recognition of legal parentage in other EU Member States.40 In many countries, there is an important role for national courts in deciding upon these cases. The decisions of courts in England and Wales, which have made the child’s welfare a paramount concern41 as well as respecting the best interests of the child, have been recognised as good practice. Courts have also held that the illicit nature of surrogacy arrangements under domestic law could not be given greater weight than the best interests of the child.42 Some have argued that the regime to address statelessness is not strong enough to offer an effective remedy to stateless children born from surrogacy arrangements.43 Yet, there has been unprecedented progress in recent years leading to new ratifications of the 1954 and 1961 Conventions, improved procedures for birth registration and identification of stateless persons, as well as the adoption of new statelessness determination procedures in many countries.44 In some of these countries, it may be time to consider whether these procedures could also provide solutions for stateless children born from 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 Oireachtas Library & Research Service (n 9) 11. HCCH, ‘A Preliminary Report on the Issues arising from International Surrogacy Arrangements’ (n 6) 24. European Commission, ‘Less bureaucracy for citizens: promoting free movement of public documents and recognition of the effects of civil status records’ (Green Paper) COM(2010) 747 <http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:52010D C0747:EN:NOT> accessed on 16 September 2013. Lin, ‘Born Lost’ (n 8). See also Re: L (A Minor) [2010] EWHC 3146 (Fam) <http://www.bailii .org/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2010/3146.pdf> accessed 15 September 2013. HCCH, ‘A Preliminary Report on the Issues arising from International Surrogacy Arrangements’ (n 6) 10. Lin, ‘Born Lost’ (n 8). UNHCR, ‘Note on Statelessness’ (4 June 2013) EC/64/SC/CRP.11 <http://www.refworld.org/ docid/51d2a8884.html> accessed 16 September 2013. tilburg law review 19 (2014) 117-126