ANNEX I Statelessness in Belgium 28. Belgium is State party to the 1954 Convention on the Status of Stateless Persons (1954 Convention) and to the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness (1961 Convention). 48 According to Article 1 of the 1954 Convention, “a ‘stateless person’ means a person who is not considered as a national by any State under the operation of its law”. Belgian law does not set out a definition of a stateless person, but since the 1954 Convention has direct effect, the 1954 Convention definition applies. Furthermore, Belgium has reservations to the 1961 Convention. 49 Regarding Article 2, Belgium considers that the category of “foundlings” concerns children who are believed to be new-born. Regarding Article 8(3), Belgium reserves the right to deprive a person of Belgian nationality if it was not acquired by virtue of a Belgian individual on the date of birth, or was not granted under the Belgian Nationality Code; in cases of fraud in the acquisition of Belgian nationality, violation of duties as a Belgian citizen, or sentencing of at least five years for a number of criminal offences. 29. Belgium is also State party to other relevant international and regional instruments, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (see Article 24.3), the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (see Articles 2.2 and 3), the Convention of the Rights of the Child (see Articles 2, 3, 7 and 8), the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (see Article 9), the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (see Article 5(d)(iii)), the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (see Article 18) and the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (see Article 25). Belgium is also party to regional treaties or declarations, including the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and the European Social Charter. However, it is not a party to the European Convention on Nationality nor the 2006 Council of Europe Convention on the Avoidance of Statelessness in Relation to State Succession. 30. The stateless population has never been comprehensively mapped in Belgium and available data is fragmented. 50 Some data on the stateless population in Belgium is available, and UNHCR published a mapping study of statelessness in the country in 2012. 51 The Belgian National Registry records people who have been recognised as stateless and issued long-term residence permits in the country, but it also contains categories that may overlap with ‘stateless’ and does not count people awaiting determination of their statelessness, recognised as stateless but not granted a residence permit, stateless people holding a short-term residence permit, nor people recognised as stateless in the asylum procedure. 31. According to UNHCR's Mid-Year Trends 2020 Report, 10,933 persons are stateless or at The 1954 Convention entered into force in Belgium in 1960 and the 1961 Convention in 2014. UN Treaty Collections, Status of Treaties, https://treaties.un.org/Pages/ViewDetails.aspx?src=TREATY&mtdsg_no=V-4&chapter=5&clang=_en#EndDec 50 Belgian authorities acknowledge that identification of the nationality may pose an acute problem in some cases. See Office des Étrangers, Statistiques annuelles 2019, p. 51, https://dofi.ibz.be/sites/default/files/202105/Cartes%20-%20statistiques%20%202019%20v3%20FR.pdf 51 UNHCR, Mapping Statelessness in Belgium, October 2012, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5100f4b22.html. 48 49 11