The Maldives' International Obligations 8. The Maldives is not a signatory to either the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, nor the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. 9. The Maldives has international obligations to protect the right to a nationality and protect the rights of stateless persons on the basis of other UN and regional treaties to which it is a party. These include, among others, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR article 24.3), the Convention of the Rights of the Child (CRC - articles 2, 3, 7 and 8), the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW - article 9), the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD - article 5(d)(iii)), and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD - article 18). Furthermore, the right to a nationality is protected in Article 15 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights. 10. Although the Maldives has ratified each of the above human rights treaties, reservations have been placed in relation to the ICCPR (on article 18 – freedom of thought, conscience and religion); CEDAW (on article 16 – equality in marriage and family relations), the CRC (on all clauses related to adoption and article 14.1 - freedom of thought, conscience and religion) 11. At the time of its Report, the Maldives indicated it was considering accession to the International Convention on the protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families (ICRMW). As of October 2019, the Maldives is yet to accede to the Convention. The Maldives is also currently a member of the Ad Hoc Group for the Bali Process on People Smuggling, Trafficking in Persons and Related Transnational Crime (Bali Process).10 12. In December 2018, the UN Committee against Torture recommended, with respect to nonrefoulement obligations, that the Government of the Republic of Maldives: I. comply with its obligations not to expel, return or extradite a person to another State where there is substantial evidence to believe the person would be in danger of being subject to torture; II. ensure that decisions concerning expulsions or deportation are subjected to judicial review on an individual basis; III. provide for the right for persons concerned to effective judicial remedy, including the possibility to appeal the decision, and ensure that the appeal has suspensive effect; IV. detain persons who may be subject to expulsion only as a measure of last resort; and V. in its next report, provide the Committee with information on the number of persons who have been expelled, extradited or deported, and to which countries; on the number of 10 See The Bali Process < https://www.baliprocess.net/>; See also UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Submission by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights' Compilation Report - Universal Periodic Review: Republic of Maldives (October 2014), 2 <https://www.refworld.org/country,,UNHCR,,MDV,,554752984,0.html> ("Human Rights Compilation"). 3