SDG 16: Promote peaceful and sustainable societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all, and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions for all. ƉƉ Target 16.9: By 2030, provide legal identity for all, including birth registration. ĵĵ Global Indicator 16.9.1: Percentage of children under 5 whose births have been registered with a civil authority, disaggregated by age. ƉƉ Target 16.b: Promote and enforce non-discriminatory laws and policies for sustainable development. ĵĵ Global Indicator 16.b.1: Proportion of population reporting having personally felt discriminated against or harassed in the last 12 months on the basis of a ground of discrimination prohibited under international law. Target 16.9 is relevant to the prevention and reduction of statelessness through the provision of birth registration, and in certain cases, nationality documentation, which are both examples of proof of legal identity.6 Individuals can be at risk of statelessness if they have difficulties proving that they have links to a State, and a lack of birth registration can create such a risk. The absence of birth registration may be due to discriminatory laws and policies, lack of access to registration facilities, lack of awareness, parents’ lack of identity documentation, high costs, administrative barriers, or any combination of these reasons. Nationality is acquired either on the basis of descent, whereby children acquire the nationality of their parents (jus sanguinis) or through a child’s birth on a country’s territory (jus soli), or a combination of these approaches, depending on the State’s law. The registration of a child’s birth is the first step in 6 Although there is no universally accepted definition of legal identity, the meaning and scope of the concept can, to a certain extent, be established through the examination of provisions of relevant international human rights instruments which guarantee legal identity. Under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it is recognised that everyone has the right to be recognised before the law, and that all are equal before the law and entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. Widely ratified international treaties, such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child, also guarantee the child’s right to preserve his or her identity, including nationality, name and family relations without unlawful interference. establishing its legal identity and usually includes key information, such as the identity of the child’s parents, and the date and place of birth, that will establish the child’s nationality under the law of the State where he or she is born or under the law of other States to which the child has a relevant link. Consequently, birth registration can help to realise the child’s right to a nationality and help prevent statelessness. Individuals may also be left stateless if they cannot acquire documents which prove their nationality. In some countries, possession of a national identity card is, in practice, regarded as indicating an entitlement to nationality under the law. This means that those who may have an entitlement to nationality under the law, but who are unable to obtain an national identity card to prove that entitlement (often due to discrimination or a lack of a birth certificate), are treated as non-nationals and excluded from the benefits that flow from nationality. In the case of stateless persons in a migratory context (including refugees who may be stateless), Target 16.9 can also be helpful to identify and protect stateless persons through formal recognition and documentation until they are able to acquire a nationality. Most stateless populations living in a migratory situation remain invisible, unrecognised and undocumented, leading to a precarious existence. All stateless persons should be afforded a broad range of civil, economic, social and cultural rights, including, at minimum, those owed under the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons by States that are party to that treaty, and the rights provided under international human rights law. While these rights are not limited to individuals who have been recognised as stateless, in practice it is often only after a person has been formally identified as stateless, usually through a dedicated statelessness determination procedure, that relevant rights will be accorded.7 7 See paragraphs 144 – 152 of UNHCR, Handbook on Protection of Stateless Persons, 30 June 2014, available at: http://www.refworld.org/docid/53b676aa4.html THE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS AND ADDRESSING STATELESSNESS 4