stateless, and resolved immediately after birth registration or as soon as possible.53 The nationality of the child should be considered ‘unknown’, ‘undetermined’ or ‘under investigation’ for as short a period as possible and never longer than five years. All actions involved in determining whether a child would otherwise be stateless must be undertaken with the best interests of the child as a primary consideration, and the authority responsible for such a procedure should ensure that its decision-making staff are trained on nationality and statelessness law and have the legal and language knowledge necessary to conduct the assessment of foreign nationality laws.54 36. The Minister of Immigration and Integration has committed to contacting the Immigration Service with a view to securing the correct registration of this group of children’s nationality or statelessness and, in October 2019, Denmark also committed to strengthen cooperation between relevant authorities regarding the identification of stateless persons.55 In order to honour these commitments, Denmark must improve the procedures to determine the child’s nationality and identify where they would otherwise be stateless, including by: • • • • • Ensuring full legal safeguards are in place so that any child born on the territory who would otherwise be stateless can acquire a nationality; Building the capacity of civil registry officials through training and guidance to identify (the risk of) statelessness during birth registration; Ensuring mechanisms are in place for civil registry officials to refer identified cases for nationality determination to a clear procedure under a designated competent authority with the necessary expertise and safeguards; Ensuring that children are treated as nationals for the purposes of accessing their fundamental rights while their nationality is determined as soon as possible and in line with their best interests; Improve research, standards, guidance, and information about law and policy frameworks for the determination of the child’s nationality. Recommendations 37. Based on the above information, the co-submitting organisations urge reviewing States to make the following recommendations to Denmark: I. Provide for the automatic granting of nationality to all children born in Denmark who would otherwise be stateless or at least, if providing for the acquisition of nationality upon application, to establish that applications made by all stateless persons are conditional upon habitual residence not exceeding five years, rather than lawful residence. II. Grant nationality to the 117 children who were born in Denmark in the period between 1 January 2015 and 20 May 2020, to mothers who are nationals of one 53 UNHCR (2012), 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, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/50d460c72.html 54 For further details see European Network on Statelessness (2020), Birth registration and the prevention of statelessness in Europe: identifying good practices and remaining barriers, available at: www.statelessness.eu/files/attachments/resources/ENS-Birth_registrations-StatelessnessINDEX_briefing.pdf. 55 UNHCR (2020), High-Level Segment on Statelessness: Results and Highlights, p. 58, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5ec3e91b4.html 10