Also in line with Action 1, on 28 February, the President of Uzbekistan approved an important new citizenship law that will, according to the Uzbek authorities, immediately allow approximately half of Uzbekistan’s stateless population, or some 49,000 people, to become citizens of Uzbekistan ex lege. In addition to the general naturalization procedure, the law introduces new procedures for citizenship confirmation and simplified naturalization. Statelessness prevention is a cornerstone of the new law with important provisions to prevent statelessness at birth; during processes of adoption; after a change in the civil status of the parents; and during any citizenship change, including through renunciation. UNHCR issued a press release on the new law with further details. With regard to Action 1, the Ministry of Interior of Thailand issued two new legislative guidelines on 31 January and 19 February to help further reduce the number of stateless persons in the country. The first guideline reduces administrative and documentation requirements, including birth registration, for applicants who are over 60. The second guideline focuses on easing a number of naturalization requirements for registered ethnic minorities, including requirements related to income, tax payments and language abilities. Around half of Uzbekistan’s registered stateless population, or more than 49,000 persons, will become citizens of Uzbekistan through the new citizenship law endorsed by the Senate on 28 February 2020. © UNHCR/ Mirfozil Khasanov by the national civil registry that provided that parents with such permits do not meet requirements concerning domicile in the country at the time of the child’s birth. The Court declared the administrative resolution to be unconstitutional. In doing so the Court made reference to the Inter-American Convention on Human Rights and global standards on the prevention of statelessness at birth. UNHCR submitted an amicus brief advocating for this result. With respect to Action 2, Ensure that no child is born stateless, amendments to the Act on Croatian Citizenship came into force that strengthen safeguards against statelessness for children born to Croatian nationals abroad. UNHCR provided comments during the drafting process, which are available here. The English translation of the Act is available here. Also in line with Action 2, on 28 January, the Estonian Parliament adopted an amendment to the Citizenship Act (which entered into force on 17 February), giving children who are born to one stateless parent and one foreign national and who reside in Estonia the option of becoming Estonian nationals without having to sit an examination, provided that their family links to Estonia go back to at least 1991. With respect to Action 6, Grant protection status to stateless migrants and facilitate their naturalization, in Bulgaria, UNHCR launched a website for stateless persons living in Bulgaria with the aim of providing information on the statelessness determination procedure in various relevant languages – Bulgarian, Russian, English and Arabic. In addition to general information about issues affecting stateless persons, a special section is dedicated to the provision of legal assistance. Further on Action 2, on 17 January, the Colombian Constitutional Court issued a ruling in a case involving two children who were born in the territory to Venezuelan parents who were legally residing in the country under a humanitarian temporary permit for Venezuelans. The children were denied nationality at birth due to an administrative resolution enacted In line with Action 7, Ensure birth registration for the prevention of statelessness, on 10 March, the Government of Tanzania agreed to start issuing birth certificates to refugee children born in Nduta Camp following advocacy by UNHCR. The exercise may be extended to Mtendeli and Nyarugusu refugee camps in the near future. 5

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