Chapter 3. The Council of Europe Other relevant instruments on human rights and minority protection A possible area for legal developments relevant to statelessness might also be the CoE work that concerns the Roma. The CoE has adopted various texts and strategic documents in this regard648, even though statelessness as a separate issue is not usually part of such documents – these focus on inclusion of Roma and Travelers more broadly.649 In the Strasbourg Declaration on Roma of 2010, the member states of the CoE agreed on a number of priorities for inclusion of Roma in Europe, which included one on citizenship: “Take effective measures to avoid statelessness in accordance with domestic law and policy and to grant Roma legally residing in their national territory access to identification papers”.650 That statelessness is a problem for Roma and that it is being addressed in CoE context is acknowledged in a 2012 report that was commissioned by the CoE Commissioner for Human Rights.651 Particularly interesting is the 2012 Assembly recommendation on Roma migrants to the CM, in which the PACE asks CM – amongst others – to “ask member States to take the necessary steps to naturalise stateless Roma and to sign, ratify and implement the European Convention on Nationality (CETS No. 166) and the Council of Europe Convention on the Avoidance of Statelessness in relation to State Succession (CETS No. 200), as well as the United Nations 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons and the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness”.652 Even though the CM welcomes the efforts of the PACE to work towards improving the situation of Roma in Europe, the CM does not consider the abovementioned request of the Assembly in its reply.653 Nonetheless, it does show that statelessness and reducing this phenomenon among a group of people of which some are (at risk of) statelessness is of concern to the CoE as a whole and provides another avenue for promoting existing standards on preventing and solving statelessness. The CoE Commissioner for Human Rights has also paid attention to statelessness. The issue is, for instance, considered in reports of country visits. Indeed, in the report of the country visit to Albania in 2018, “the Commissioner calls on the authorities to ensure that European and international instruments concerning nationality, prevention and reduction of statelessness, which are 648 649 650 651 652 653 CoE, ‘Adopted Texts (Roma and Travellers)’ <https://www.coe.int/en/web/roma-and-travellers/ adopted-texts> accessed 7 October 2021. Eg CoE, ‘CoE Strategic Action Plan for Roma and Traveller Inclusion (2020–2025)’ (2020) <https://rm.coe. int/coe-strategic-action-plan-for-roma-and-traveller-inclusion-en/16809fe0d0> accessed 7 October 2021. CM, ‘The Strasbourg Declaration on Roma’ (CoE High Level Meeting on Roma, Strasbourg, 20 October 2010) CM(2010)133 fi nal, pt 21. CoE, Human Rights of Roma and Travellers in Europe (Council of Europe Publishing 2012), available online <https://www.coe.int/t/commissioner/source/prems/prems79611_GBR_CouvHumanRightsOf Roma_WEB.pdf> accessed 3 January 2022, see in particular Ch 7. PACE, Recommendation 2003 (2012) fi nal version: Roma Migrants in Europe, para 7.3. CM, Reply to Recommendation 2003 (2012) on Roma Migrants in Europe (1166th Meeting of the Ministers’ Deputies, 27 March 2013) Doc 13162. Intersentia 123