CEDAW Article 9(2) obligates states to “grant women equal rights with men with respect to the nationality of their children.” Furthermore, Article 9(1) obligates that states “grant women equal rights with men to acquire, change or retain their nationality.” Syria has entered a reservation to Article 9 (2) “concerning the grant of a woman's nationality to her children”, but has no reservation in place on Article 9(1). The co-submitting organisations share the view of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women that Article 9 among others is “central to the object and purpose of the Convention and that the reservations impact negatively on the enjoyment by women of their rights.”5 Therefore, we believe that the maintenance of nationality laws which discriminate on the basis of gender are themselves in conflict with the object and purpose of the Convention and with the general obligation of all state parties to “agree to pursue by all appropriate means and without delay a policy of eliminating discrimination against women.”6 7. Syria is also a state party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which obligates states to ensure each child’s right to a nationality (Article 24), and also mandates that all citizens be equal before the law without any discrimination to the equal protection of the law on any ground including sex (Article 26). Gender discrimination in Syria’s nationality law violates Syria’s obligations under both of these provisions, by undermining the right of the child to acquire a nationality and the equal right of the mother to transfer her nationality. 8. Syria is also a party to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), Articles 7 and 8 of which entrench every child’s right to acquire a nationality and protect against childhood statelessness. Article 7 of the CRC states that a child has “the right to acquire a nationality and, as far as possible, the right to know and be cared for by his or her parents … in particular where the child would otherwise be stateless.” Article 8 calls for States Parties to “undertake to respect the right of the child to preserve his or her identity, including nationality, name and family relations…” These two provisions are to be read in conjunction with CRC Article 2 (Non-Discrimination, which requires state parties to uphold the rights enshrined in the Convention without discrimination based on various grounds including the sex of the child or his or her parent), and Article 3 (Best Interests of the Child shall be a primary consideration). Thus, it is more than evident that Syria’s obligations under the CRC require it to not discriminate against women in their ability to transfer nationality to their children, in particular where this impinges on the child’s right to acquire a nationality and in extreme cases would even lead to statelessness. Furthermore, Syrian women’s inability to confer nationality on their foreign spouses threatens a child’s right to know and be cared for by his or her parents, in violation of Article 7 of the CRC. 9. Syria is also a state party to the International covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and the Convention on the Rights of all forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD). 10. Syria has not acceded to the 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons or the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, nor has it pledged to do so. 5 The CEDAW Committee has noted this on a number of occasions and in Concluding Recommendations for State Parties under review, including in CEDAW/C/ARE/CO/1, para 16, access at http://mofa.gov.ae/EN/Documents/Convention%20on%20the%20Elimination%20of%20All%20Forms%20of%20Disrcimination%20against %20Women.pdf. In Syria’s first CEDAW review, the Committee’s Concluding Recommendations stated that the Committee, “calls upon the State party to review and withdraw all remaining reservations, and especially reservations to articles 9 and 16, which are incompatible with the object and purpose of the Convention,” access at http://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/treatybodyexternal/Download.aspx?symbolno=CEDAW%2fC%2fSYR%2fCO%2f1&Lang=en. 6 Report of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (Eighteenth and nineteenth sessions), A/53/38/Rev.1, page 47, access at http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/cedaw/reports/18report.pdf