Birth registration Provision 1. Every child born within State X will be registered at birth by State X and given a birth certificate by State X. Comments Birth registration is “the continuous, permanent and universal recording with the civil registry, of the occurrence and characteristics of births in accordance with the legal requirements of a country”.51 It serves as important proof of the place of birth and parentage, and as such is usually essential for the acquisition of nationality.52 Registration of birth generally involves making an official entry in the State’s registry and issuing a birth certificate. 53 A birth certificate records at a minimum the child’s name, date and place of birth, and the parents’ names and the parents’ nationality. 54 Where national law allows nationality to be acquired on grounds of descent (jus sanguinis), birth certificates provide evidence of who the child’s parents are. Where citizenship is acquired on grounds of birth in the territory (jus soli), birth certificates prove the birthplace. It is important to distinguish between non-registration of birth and nonacquisition of a nationality. Nationality is usually acquired automatically, or ex lege, upon birth, rather than at the registration of the birth. Birth registration does not confer nationality. When a child does not acquire a nationality due to a lack of registration of their birth, they are usually entitled, by law, to receive the nationality of their parents or their place of birth. However, if a child’s birth goes unregistered, the child lacks evidence of their right to nationality, thereby they are at a heightened risk of not acquiring a nationality, as the State may ultimately refuse to acknowledge them as a citizen in the absence of evidence of their identity, parentage or place of birth. In the context of displacement, birth registration becomes particularly important, as a birth certificates establish the identity and biodata of the child, as well as the family and country to which the child belongs as a national. As the Arab region almost exclusively uses the jus sanguinis method of acquisition of nationality, the recording of the nationality of a child’s parents on their birth certificate is often essential to safeguard the child’s right to a nationality in practice. 24