Leaving No One Behind: Statelessness and the Sustainable Development Goals Ending discrimination in nationality law requires not only the removal of direct discrimination encoded in the main nationality law, but also a review of birth registration and family law to eliminate discriminatory provisions and reform procedures that discriminate indirectly by imposing administrative requirements that are impossible to fulfil for members of certain groups.230 While the instinctive response of development actors – at both national and international level – may be that proposing detailed legal reforms to prevent statelessness is not within their mandate or expertise, these minimum standards are firmly established by international and regional human rights systems, and often also in national constitutions or legislation. Development actors regularly seek to influence States’ laws, policies and practices on other issues. Eliminating sex discrimination is already a priority under the SDGs, while development actors already commonly support actions to combat discrimination, in some cases even where this is very controversial at national level.231 Preventing statelessness among children Although determination of nationality is in general a question of national law, international law places constraints on this discretion not only in the ending of discrimination but also in relation to the prevention of statelessness. It should be a priority for development agencies to support reforms that will prevent statelessness among children, in order to prevent the exclusion that will last a lifetime. The most important protection against statelessness is that those born or found in the territory who cannot acquire another nationality should be able, without discrimination on any grounds, to acquire the nationality of the State of birth (see heading in Chapter 2: Solutions to statelessness). In addition to the necessary minimum legal framework, an important measure to reduce the risk of statelessness is the strengthening of child protection mechanisms. Children vulnerable to statelessness should be identified early and steps taken to complete the administrative processes that will enable them to be issued with nationality documentation by the time it becomes a requirement.232 While a national identity document may not be required until a person turns 16 or 18, these processes should be completed as soon as possible after a child’s potential statelessness becomes known: statelessness among children often deprives them of access to their rights; the longer it takes to resolve their status, the more damaging the impacts and the harder it becomes to find the evidence required to confirm or grant nationality.233 Where government services exist that are able to integrate this programming (notably social workers), they should be strengthened with resources and with training to identify the issues. If there is no government service of this kind, civil society groups with relevant mandates may be able to provide a partial substitute. Rule of law: legal assistance and independent oversight A joint report by UNHCR and the International Development Law Organization published in 2022 focused in particular on statelessness and the rule of law.234 Respect for the rule of law is central to the prevention and reduction of statelessness and already a priority within the SDGs. It is protected by multiple human rights treaties and integrated into national constitutions and it is particularly important for the prevention of statelessness that the rights of those who are already entitled to nationality in law are respected. 230. Amal de Chickera and Joanna Whiteman, “Addressing statelessness through the rights to equality and non-discrimination”, in Solving Statelessness, ed. Laura van Waas and Melanie Khanna (Oisterwijk, The Netherlands: Wolf Legal Publishers, 2017), 99–128; Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion, “Citizenship and statelessness: inequality and non-discrimination”, 2018, www.institutesi.org/resources/understanding-and-addressing-inequality-anddiscrimination; UNHCR and UNICEF, “Background note on sex discrimination in birth registration”. 231. See, for example, World Bank Group Statement on Uganda, 8 August 2023 (on protection of sexual and gender minorities from discrimination and exclusion in projects financed by the Bank) www.worldbank.org/en/news/statement/2023/08/08/world-bank-group-statement-on-uganda. 232. UNHCR, “Good practices paper – Action 2”. Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion, “Ten-point checklist for identifying issues relating to the child’s right to a nationality”, Chapter 5 in “Addressing the right to a nationality through the Convention on the Rights of the Child: A Toolkit for Civil Society”, 2016 https://files.institutesi.org/CRC_Toolkit_Final.pdf. 233. UNHCR, “I am here, I belong”. 234. UNHCR and IDLO, “Addressing statelessness through the rule of law”; see also Venice Commission, “Rule of law checklist” (Venice: Council of Europe, March 2016), https://www.venice.coe.int/webforms/documents/default.aspx?pdffile=CDL-AD(2016)007-e; David Dyzenhaus, “The rule of (administrative) law in international law”, Law and Contemporary Problems 68, No. 3/4 (2005): 127–66. 58