UNCHR’s High Level Segment on Statelessness,12 Malta acceded to the 1954 Convention in 2019. However, it retains significant reservations to Article 11, Article 14, and Article 32, and the Convention does not have direct effect. Malta is still not State party to the 1961 Convention. 9. Malta has international obligations to protect the right to a nationality and protect the rights of stateless persons on the basis of other UN and regional treaties to which it is a party, including: 13 • • • • • • • International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (see Article 24.3); International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (see Articles. 2.2 and Article 3); Convention of the Rights of the Child (see Articles 2, 3, 7 and 8); Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (see Article 9); International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (see Article 5(d)(iii)); Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (see Article 18); International Convention for the Protection of All persons from Enforced Disappearance (see Article 25.4). Furthermore, the right to a nationality is included in Article 15 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights. Malta is not a party to the Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families 10. Malta retains several significant reservations to these conventions. For example, its reservation to Article 13 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights relates to protection from unlawful expulsion. Other reservations relate to the criminal justice system and protections from hate speech and incitement to violence. Malta made reservations to the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against relating to reproductive rights, family and property law, and the payment of certain social security entitlements to ‘the head of the household presumed to be the husband’. These reservations impact all women in Malta, including stateless women who risk being disproportionately affected as they already face significant challenges in these areas due to the lack of nationality. 11. Malta has signed but not acceded to the European Convention on Nationality and is not State party to the Convention on the Avoidance of Statelessness in Relation to State Succession. Malta is party to the European Convention on Human Rights. It is also bound by the EU Returns Directive. Issue 1 – Data on the stateless population 12. Based on limited data, stateless populations could include, in a migratory context, people of Palestinian origin, or people from Eritrea, Syria and Ethiopia. However, Malta does not have a procedure for identifying and determining statelessness, and statelessness is not identified or assessed in any of the procedures available. This results 12 UNHCR, High-Level Segment on Statelessness: Results and Highlights, at https://www.unhcr.org/ibelong/results-of-the-highlevel-segment-on-statelessness/. 13 See: https://treaties.un.org/Pages/ParticipationStatus.aspx?clang=_en. 3