this area, please refer to the UNHCR Good practices paper – Action 7: Ensuring birth registration for the prevention of statelessness, November 2017.9 Sample laws and good practices This section features examples of laws that contain one or more of the three safeguards outlined above. The adoption of provisions covering all three of these safeguards by all States would significantly assist in eliminating childhood statelessness around the world.10 1. Providing nationality to children born in the territory who would otherwise be stateless The 1961 Convention compels Contracting States to grant nationality to children born in their territory who would otherwise be stateless. The Convention does not mandate a single way for States to confer nationality on such children but gives them a choice: either automatically or upon application. In the latter case, however, the 1961 Convention does establish outer limits on the conditions that States may place on a child’s eligibility to apply for nationality. The list of permissible conditions, as contained in Article 1(2), are as follows: • A requirement that the application be lodged during a period “beginning not later than at the age of eighteen years and ending not earlier than at the age of twenty-one years” (Article 1(2)(a)). • A requirement of habitual residence in the Contracting State for a fixed period, “not exceeding five years immediately preceding an application nor ten years in all” (Article 1(2)(b)). • Restrictions based on criminal history (Article 1(2)(c)). • The condition that the person concerned has always been stateless (Article 1(2)(d)). The 1961 Convention does not permit the imposition of any other conditions. A Contracting State may not, for instance, limit the grant of its nationality to children whose parents are legal residents of the State. A child’s right to acquire a Contracting State’s nationality is to be ensured independently of the parents’ legal status. Although not required by the 1961 Convention, laws that grant nationality automatically at birth are considered best practice.11 They conform with the principle of the “best interests of the child”, as set forth in Articles 3 and 7 of the CRC, and the principle of avoiding statelessness, a principle that some now regard as having 9 See UNHCR, Good practices paper – Action 7: Ensuring birth registration for the prevention of statelessness, November 2017, available at: www.refworld.org/docid/5a0ac8f94.html. 10 See UNHCR, Good practices paper – Action 2, supra. 11 See 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, 21 December 2012, HCR/GS/12/04, available at: www.refworld.org/docid/50d460c72.html 11