Part II. European Law on Nationality and Statelessness up with some tools for improving visibility, availability of information and accession to the CoE nationality conventions562, as well as a proposal for the 4th European Conference on Nationality, which took place in 2010. It also recommended to the CDCJ that that CJ-NA should be reinstated as soon as possible in light of the importance of the work of the CoE in the area of nationality.563 The CJ-NA was, however, not reinstated and the CDCJ remains the responsible organ in this field. In short, a specialized organ on nationality was abandoned and cooperation is to take place in the context of a more general CoE body. In itself, that is not contrary to the ECN, nor is reporting in a less public way, but it is at least questionable whether this is in the interests of progressive development of legal principles and practice concerning nationality and related matters, such as statelessness – an issue that remains of importance to the CDCJ. At the same time, the CDCJ has listed its standard-setting on nationality as one of its completed standard setting activities.564 The ECN remains important in that it consolidates the obligations and ideas that have emerged as a result of international and internal laws on nationality matters in a single and concrete document that is ready to be implemented in states’ nationality laws.565 Although the ECN cannot be considered to be a ‘real’ human rights document, it can be viewed as an important contribution to (European) human rights law. Th is is related to the fact that the right to a nationality itself is a human right and that the possession of a nationality paves the way for the enjoyment of other (human) rights. As such, it has been held that the ECN is “a significant and welcome advance in the process of transforming the Universal Declaration’s call for a right of all persons to possess a nationality into a substantive legal norm”.566 At the same time, the ECN has not even been ratified by half of the CoE member states, thereby roughly representing barely a third of the European population, and some of the ambitions for development and cooperation within the context of this legal instrument are not as actively pursued as they used to be. Still, the legal standards that this instrument provides are relevant for a large number of European countries and can thus aid in reducing statelessness in Europe. 562 563 564 565 566 108 These included a proposal for a website (which existed for a while, but is no longer online), as well as a draft brochure which provides states ten good reasons for acceding to the European nationality conventions. These are attached in the appendixes to the Final Report (CJ-S-NAT, ‘Final Report’, CJ-SNAT (2008) 24). CJ-S-NAT, ‘Final Report’, CJ-S-NAT (2008) 24. CDCJ, ‘Standard Setting – Completed Activities’ <https://www.coe.int/en/web/cdcj/standard-settingcompleted-activities> accessed 26 May 2021. See also Gerard-René de Groot, ‘The European Convention on Nationality: A Step towards a Ius Commune in the Field of Nationality Law’ (2007) 7 Maastricht Journal of European and Comparative Law 117, 120; Laura van Waas, ‘Fighting Statelessness and Discriminatory Nationality Laws in Europe’ (2012) 14 European Journal of Migration and Law 243, 247. Stephen Hall, ‘The European Convention on Nationality and the Right to Have Rights’ (1999) 24 European Law Review 586, 600. Intersentia