Leaving No One Behind: Statelessness and the Sustainable Development Goals (see box (B) below). With stronger rights based on birth within the territory and stronger protections against discrimination, statelessness could rapidly be eliminated.10 Minimum protections against statelessness are established by the UN Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons of 1954 and the UN Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness of 1961.11 The primary obligation to ensure that a child is not stateless lies with the State of birth, which should grant its own nationality if the child cannot acquire nationality from a parent. This obligation is established by the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, the American Convention on Human Rights and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child.12 The obligation has been reinforced by decisions of the Inter-American Court on Human Rights, the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child and the UN Human Rights Committee and is quite widely acknowledged even by states that are not parties to the relevant treaties.13 ! B) Legal protections against statelessness for children • A child should have the equal right to the nationality of either parent, without discrimination on the grounds of sex, whether born in or out of wedlock. • A child’s right to a nationality should not be conditioned on membership of a particular racial, ethnic, religious or similar group. • A child of parents who are stateless or of unknown nationality, or who cannot acquire the nationality of a parent, should acquire the nationality of the State of birth (without conditions other than determination of the facts). • A child found in the country of unknown parents should be presumed born in the country of parents holding the nationality of that country. • A child adopted by a national should have the right to acquire the nationality of the adoptive parent. • A child born through a surrogacy arrangement should have the right to acquire the nationality of the commissioning parent(s). • A child born outside the country of nationality of a parent should have the right to acquire the nationality of that parent if otherwise stateless. • A child should not be affected by a parent’s loss or deprivation of nationality. In general, solutions will be different for “in situ” stateless persons and those “in a migratory context”. For “in situ” stateless persons, the best solution will almost always be recognition or acquisition of the nationality of the State of birth and residence. For those in migratory context, establishment of a statelessness determination procedure, coupled with the issuing of an identity document confirming legal residence and access to other rights and services for stateless persons, may be a necessary step to provide protection until the nationality of a new State can be acquired. Chapter 4 of this report considers these issues in more detail, as they may be integrated into development programming. 10. UNHCR, “Guidelines on statelessness no. 4: ensuring every child’s right to acquire a nationality through articles 1–4 of the 1961 convention on the reduction of statelessness” (Geneva: United Nations, December 2012), www.refworld.org/policy/legalguidance/unhcr/2012/en/105120; UNHCR, “Good practices paper – action 2: ensuring that no child is born stateless” (Geneva: United Nations, March 2017), www.refworld.org/policy/opguidance/ unhcr/2017/en/121326. 11. As of July 2025, there were 99 State Parties to the 1954 Convention and 82 to the 1961 Convention. See UN Treaty Depository https://treaties.un.org/ Pages/Treaties.aspx?id=5&subid=A&clang=_en. 12. UN Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, 1961, Article 1; American Convention on Human Rights, 1969, Article 20; African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, 1989, Article 6. 13. For a recent analysis, see William Thomas Worster, “Customary International Law Requiring States to Grant Nationality to Stateless Children Born in Their Territory”, Statelessness & Citizenship Review 4, No. 1 (2022): 113–39. 17