alien registration may not always indicate actual nationality or statelessness.” This shows that acknowledgement of a nationality (or statelessness) by the local authorities and regional Legal Affairs Bureau does not always reflect actual nationality or lack of nationality.110 In the determination of nationality, the Bureau's foreign registration practice has given weight to passports, other relevant documents and the applicant's own statements. However, standard procedures that each administration can refer to in order to determine whether an applicant has a nationality, and in particular, whether an applicant is stateless, have not been established in the alien registration procedure.111 The most serious effect on nationality decisions results from birth registration. Registration of birth with the Japanese authorities in itself does not grant the child a nationality; it only confirms the nationality of the child. However, failing to carry it out leaves the child’s nationality unrecognized. Thus birth registration, or rather the lack of it is now recognized as a source of statelessness.112 Article 7(1) of the Convention on the Rights of the Child states: “The child shall be registered immediately after birth and shall have the right from birth to a name, the right to acquire a nationality.” This indicates that nationality cannot materialize without birth registration.113 In the above-mentioned survey conducted by Professor Okuda, 81 persons, or a third of the surveyed subjects, born in Japan had not registered their birth. More than a hundred had not registered birth in the non-Japanese parent’s country. Fourteen of irregular immigrant status had refrained from registering the birth of their child from fear of being reported to the immigration authorities. Two subjects had not registered birth because the hospital had not issued them a birth certificate.114 Professor Lee describes the situation in her August 2000 thesis; “The mother, an illegal resident, knows she will be deported if the authorities come to know of her status. The mother thus refrains from visits to public offices. She will not report her pregnancy, and 110 Okuda, supra note 23, pp.32-33, pp.149. In an interview with her on September 28, 2008, Professor Chen Tien-shi, who has conducted extensive research on stateless persons, stated “The word stateless used in the Japanese alien registration system is very ambiguous. Since statelessness requires some sort of treatment, the tendency has been to avoid using this term, assigning the name of a country or an area.” 111 Interviews with the Immigration Bureau of the Ministry of Justice conducted on April 30, 2009. 112 Waas, supra note 13, pp.447. 113 Concluding Observations: Philippines, UN Doc.CRC/C/15/Add.258, 2005 paras.36-37 clearly states this view. 114 Okuda, supra note 23, 126-38. 44