Republic should ensure that every child has a nationality, including by granting citizenship to children born to stateless parents irrespective of their legal status.9 10. In 2019, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) recommended that the Czech Republic withdraw its reservation to Article 27 of the 1954 Convention to facilitate access of every stateless person to identity documents; adopt a legal definition of a stateless person in line with the 1954 Convention; adopt a dedicated and effective statelessness determination procedure; systematically collect statistics on stateless persons; and facilitate access to a nationality without discrimination for all children born to stateless parents, regardless of their residence status, and for children born out of wedlock to a Czech father and a foreign mother. 10 In addition, CERD recommended that the Czech Republic increase its efforts to promote the economic, social and cultural rights of Roma and guarantee their access to services without discrimination.11 Emphasising that the detention of asylum seekers should be a measure of last resort and applied for as short a time as possible, CERD also recommended that the Czech Republic end the practice of detaining asylum seekers with their children, including persons who are subject to transfer under the Dublin III Regulation, and develop alternative non-custodial types of accommodation for asylumseekers, particularly for families with children.12 11. The Committee against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT) also recommended in 2018 that the Czech Republic introduce a definition of a stateless person into its domestic legislation, establish a dedicated statelessness determination procedure, provide stateless persons with identification documents, and create a central database of stateless persons in its territory.13 CAT had made similar recommendations in 2012, where it also recommended that, in order to avoid discrimination among different categories of stateless persons, the Czech Republic review provisions on the acquisition of nationality by children who would otherwise be stateless or who are born out of wedlock to foreign stateless mothers.14 The Czech Republic’s International Obligations 12. The Czech Republic acceded to the 1954 Convention in 2004. The Convention has direct effect in Czech law, but the Czech Republic retains a number of significant reservations, including by restricting rights to identity papers (Article 27) and travel documents (Article 28) to stateless people holding permanent residence permits. The Czech Republic has also been a State Party to the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness (1961 Convention) since 2001, with no reservations. 13. The Czech Republic has international obligations to protect the right to a nationality and the rights of stateless persons on the basis of other UN and regional treaties to which it is a party. These include, among others: 15 9 Human Rights Committee, Concluding observations on the fourth periodic report of Czechia, 6 December 2019, CCPR/C/CZE/CO/4, para 45. 10 Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, Concluding observations on the combined twelfth and thirteenth periodic reports of Czechia, 19 September 2019, CERD/C/CZE/CO/12-13, para 28. 11 ibid, para 16. 12 ibid, para 22. 13 Committee against Torture (CAT), Concluding observations on the sixth periodic report of Czechia, 6 June 2018, CAT/C/CZE/CO/6, para 23. 14 CAT, Concluding observations on the fourth and fifth periodic reports of the Czech Republic, 13 July 2012, CAT/C/CZE/CO/4-5, para 19. 15 See: https://treaties.un.org/Pages/ParticipationStatus.aspx?clang=_en. 3