EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF THE HIGH COMMISSIONER’S PROGRAMME Dist. RESTRICTED EC/61/SC/CRP.5 9 February 2010 STANDING COMMITTEE 47th meeting Original: ENGLISH BIRTH REGISTRATION: A TOPIC PROPOSED FOR AN EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE CONCLUSION ON INTERNATIONAL PROTECTION 1. Birth registration is fundamental to the protection of children of concern to UNHCR and to the prevention of statelessness. Every child has the right to be registered at birth, as recognized inter alia in the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The United Nations General Assembly has urged States to intensify efforts in the area of birth registration, 1 while the Executive Committee has called on States to facilitate birth registration and to do so with the assistance of UNHCR, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). 2 However, the Executive Committee has yet to provide detailed guidance on this key element of protection. 2. Birth registration is the first step towards ensuring recognition as a person before the law. Failure to document a person’s legal existence beginning from birth can prevent the effective enjoyment of a range of human rights. For example, access to education and health care may be problematic. Furthermore, because registration establishes proof of age, it provides children with a degree of protection against child labour, early marriage, illegal adoption, sexual exploitation and recruitment into armed forces or armed groups. Similarly, unregistered children are at heightened risk of trafficking and of being treated as adults when in conflict with the law. The biodata provided by birth registration is useful in the operational context of tracing and family reunification, for planning purposes and in the search for durable solutions.. 3. Birth registration is also essential in ensuring the right of every child to acquire a nationality. However, it is important to distinguish between birth registration and the process by which individuals acquire nationality. At birth, acquisition of nationality under the law generally occurs automatically either by jus sanguinis (descent) or jus soli (birth on the territory). Birth registration establishes in legal terms the place of birth and parental affiliation, which in turn serves as documentary proof underpinning acquisition of the parents’ nationality (jus sanguinis), or the nationality of the State based on where the child is born (jus soli). Thus, while nationality is normally acquired independently and birth registration in and of itself does not normally confer nationality upon the child concerned, birth registration does constitute a key form of proof of the link between an individual and a State and thereby serves to prevent statelessness. 1 2 UN General Assembly Resolution A/RES/63/241, of 13 March 2009. See in particular Executive Committee Conclusions 90 [r], 106, [h] and 107 [c, h].