Statelessness Determination Procedures permits residence and guarantees the enjoyment of basic human rights and facilitates naturalisation for stateless migrants. 83 States have discretion as to the structure of their SDP and their method of granting nationality. After all, in the Nottebohm case, the International Court of Justice held that it is for every sovereign state, to settle by its own legislation the rules relating to the acquisition of its nationality, and to confer that nationality by naturalization granted by its own organs in accordance with that legislation. 84 However, states should ensure that applicants are immediately able, or at least in the foreseeable future, through an expedited proceeding, to acquire nationality. As provided in art 32 of the 1954 Convention, where an administrative fee is necessary for acquisition of nationality, as far as possible, the charges and costs of such proceedings should be reduced for stateless persons. Naturalisation could be simplified by ensuring that barriers to an easy and smooth naturalisation process are removed from nationality laws. This could be done through removal or reduction of naturalisation application fees for stateless persons, removal of the requirement of legal residence, reduction of the number of years of residency to qualify for naturalisation, 85 and removal of language requirements for stateless persons. H Review and Appeal of Decisions A proper determination procedure should guarantee a right to appeal a firstinstance rejection of an application. Such status determination decisions should be subject to review in accordance with the ordinary system for the administrative and judicial review of administrative acts in that country. The lodging of appeals, whether for administrative or judicial remedies, should suspend the execution of any resolution concerning expulsion. 86 In some states, the courts are the competent authorities for the recognition of statelessness in the first instance. An example is Belgium where the courts are the competent authority for SDP. 87 Italy has both judicial and administrative procedures. 88 In states with a judicial procedure, the applicable national court or civil procedure rules are applied for determining statelessness. For such a state, there should be another layer for review or appeal of a first instance decision to a higher court. A state may elect to have a separate administrative or judicial review process for SDP distinct from the ordinary system for administrative or judicial review. Nonetheless, it should ensure that such a review process is independent of 83 84 85 86 87 88 See UNHCR Global Action Plan (n 9) 16. Nottebohm (Liechtenstein v Guatemala) (Second Phase) (Judgement) [1955] ICJ Rep 4, 20. See also Convention on Certain Questions Relating to the Conflict of Nationality Laws, opened for signature 12 April 1930, 179 LNTS 89 (entered into force 1 July 1937) art 1. The Republic of Brazil is a good example in this regard, reducing the number of years of residence from four to two for stateless persons, see Decreto nº 9.199, de 20 de novembro de 2017 [Decree No 9199 of November 20, 2017] (Brazil) art 99 [tr author]. See Rosenblat et al (n 55) 21, 35. See Carine Rustom and Quentin Schoonvaere, Mapping Statelessness in Belgium (Report, October 2012) 48, 51. See also Recognition of Stateless Persons (Ad-Hoc Query, European Migration Network 2015) 5; Judicial Code (2007) (Belgium) art 569(1). See EMN Inform — Statelessness in the EU (Report, European Migration Network 5 October 2016) 7. 100