Statelessness Working Paper Series 2017/04 Convention on the Status of Stateless Persons as it refers to the term ‘operation’ of the law of the countries to assess whether or not a person is stateless. Literature relating to statelessness has so far paid too little attention to the application in practice of legal safeguards against statelessness at birth. The European Network on Statelessness, a nongovernmental organization based in the United Kingdom, has recently commissioned a number of researches on childhood statelessness in several European states. Those existing case studies have focused on nations who experience ‘internal statelessness’, resulting from dissolution of states or discriminatory practice, as experienced by the largest stateless community in Europe, the Roma. 8 Moreover, although existing literature recognises the link between migration and statelessness,9 no research has yet been entirely dedicated to statelessness prevention among vulnerable migrant populations in Europe. This case study is therefore an addition to existing research as it not only looks at the implementation of the legislation on statelessness prevention at birth in a country with no known issue with statelessness, but also investigates how the implementation can prove difficult with regard to children of a particularly vulnerable group in the migratory context, namely asylum seekers. In order to grasp the current implementation of the legal safeguards against statelessness at birth, this research submitted semi-structured questionnaires to municipalities, due to their responsibility for the registration of births and nationalities of people currently in Belgium. This paper first provides in section 2 an analysis of the Syrian context and of the application of the Syrian Nationality Law in order to identify currently stateless persons in Syria and Syrians at risk of statelessness in the migratory context. Section 3 reviews the different possible legal statuses of asylum seekers from Syria present in Belgium, as the national laws apply differently to individuals depending on their legal status. In section 4, the relevant Belgian laws and specific clauses applicable to statelessness prevention are presented in light of each legal status that an asylum seeker could hold. Technical obstacles to acquisition of Syrian or Belgian nationality are then assessed in Section 5. Finally, section 6 presents the results of a field research on the implementation and application of those laws by Belgian municipalities in which Syrians and asylum seekers reside. The outcome of the research showed that in practice proper application of the existing legal safeguards against stateless at birth is impaired by administrative obstacles or lack of expertise of civil servants who implement the law, which still leaves asylum seekers' children at risk of statelessness. 2. Syria: Identifying Stateless Persons and Persons at Risk of Statelessness This section seeks to identify both stateless persons and persons at risk of statelessness in the Syrian context. A stateless person is “a person who is not considered as a national by any State under the operation of its law”.10 This definition is found in Article 1 of the Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons of 1954 and is now considered as being accepted as customary law.11 The second 8 European Network on Statelessness (ENS), ‘Ending Childhood Statelessness: A study on Albania’, Working Paper 06/15 (2015); ENS, ‘Ending Childhood Statelessness: A study on Estonia’, Working Paper 04/15 (2015); ENS, ‘Ending Childhood Statelessness: A study on Italy’, Working Paper 07/15 (2015); ENS ‘Ending Childhood Statelessness: A study on Latvia’, Working Paper 07/15 (2015); ENS, ‘Ending Childhood Statelessness: A study on Macedonia’, Working Paper 02/15 (2015); ENS, ‘Ending Childhood Statelessness: A study on Poland’, Working Paper 03/15 (2015); ENS, ‘Ending Childhood Statelessness: A study on Romania’, Working Paper 01/15 (2015); ENS, ‘Ending Childhood Statelessness: A study on Slovenia’, Working Paper 08/15 (2015). 9 L. van Waas, ‘Addressing the "new" causes of statelessness’, in L. van Waas (ed.), Nationality Matters Statelessness under International Law (Intersentia, 2008), p.151; Z. Albarazi and L. van Waas, Statelessness and displacement, 2016, p. 23. 10 United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, 28 September 1954, United Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 360, p. 117, http://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6b3840.html. 11 United Nations (UN), draft Articles on Diplomatic Protection with commentaries,2006, http://www.refworld.org/docid/525e7929d.html. 2