Statelessness Working Paper Series 2017/04 1. Introduction In light of the current conflict in the Syrian Arab Republic (Syria)1, European Union Member States have had to deal with high inflows of asylum seekers2 reaching their territories. The situation is being portrayed as a crisis in the media. However, the crisis discussed in this article is of another nature: it is a statelessness crisis. To mark the 60th anniversary of the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) launched in 2014 an international campaign to end statelessness worldwide by 2024.3 However, the current conflict in Syria and the consequent migration flows put Syrians fleeing their country at greater risk of becoming stateless.4 Children born in this context are especially at risk. In line with the aim of UNHCR campaign, this research tries to identify both current legal safeguards against statelessness at birth for the population fleeing Syria present in Belgium as well as obstacles in practice to the acquisition of a nationality. This paper uses Belgium as a case study. As highlighted by the recent report on statelessness from UNHCR, Belgium has important safeguards against statelessness in its legislation, and is mostly in line with the 1961 Convention on the Prevention and Reduction of Statelessness, which it ratified on July 1, 2014. 5 Belgium can therefore serve as an example for current systems of prevention of statelessness in the migratory context and can help further improve national laws in other European countries in order to end statelessness. Ensuring each child can acquire a nationality is an obligation laid down in different international human rights instruments to which Belgium is party. This research is significant as in 2015 only, there were 334 children born in Belgium to mothers of Syrian nationality, amongst which 61 were registered asylum-seekers.6 As will be further explained, these children could be at risk of becoming stateless if filiation with the father cannot be established due to Syria’s gender discriminatory nationality law, preventing Syrian women from passing along their nationality to their children. This article therefore aims to answer the following research question: how do Belgian laws and their implementation effectively prevent statelessness among children of asylum seekers from Syria who are born in Belgium? This research focuses on the prevention of statelessness at birth in the migratory context. The main causes of childhood statelessness identified in the literature that are relevant for the sample population in this research are: the inheritance of statelessness by new-borns from their parents, gaps in and conflicts between nationality laws, and administrative barriers and lack of documentation proving links to a nationality. 7 These causes find their sources both in law and in practice, which justifies that both aspects are researched to have an accurate picture of statelessness prevention in the country. This dual inquiry is also prescribed by the definition of a stateless person in the 1954 1 The simplified term of Syria is used throughout this paper to refer to the Syrian Arab Republic. The terminology of asylum seeker will be used to refer to persons fleeing their country regardless of their status. The terminology of registered asylum seeker will then be used for asylum seekers in the asylum procedure who have submitted an asylum application before the relevant authorities and are awaiting a final decision on their status. 3 http://www.unhcr.org/ibelong/ 4 See in this regard: Norwegian Refugee Council & Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion (NRC/ISI), Understanding statelessness in the Syria Refugee context, 2016, http://www.refworld.org/docid/584021494.html 5 United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Mapping Statelessness in Belgium - Summary Report, October 2012, http://www.refworld.org/docid/5100f3412.html. 6 Foreign Public Service Economie - Direction Générale Statistique - Statistics Belgium, naissances vivantes enregistrées en Belgique en 2015 dont les mères étaient de nationalité syrienne, unpublished. 7 Institute on statelessness and inclusion, Addressing the Right to a Nationality through the Convention on the Rights of the Child, A Toolkit for Civil Society, (2016), http://www.statelessnessandhumanrights.org/tools/toolkit-downloads; Z. Albarazi and L. van Waas, Statelessness and displacement: scoping paper, (2016), https://www.nrc.no/resources/reports/statelessness-and-displacement/. 2 1