Nationality and Cases of Statelessness in the Middle East and North Africa nationality and statelessness, it remains to comment briefly on a third notion which can also be found in this report. This is the idea of a person being “at risk of statelessness”. Ultimately, the objective of the international community, when it comes to statelessness, is to ensure that this phenomenon is eradicated and everyone is able to enjoy their right to a nationality as protected under human rights law.11 To achieve this, effort must be made to resolve existing cases of statelessness, but also to prevent new cases from arising. It is in this context that the notion of risk of statelessness is helpful. Someone who is at risk of statelessness would not currently meet the definition of a stateless person, but his or her circumstances mean that there is a considerable chance that statelessness will arise if preventive action is not taken. An example which is commonly given in this context is the risk of statelessness that emerges where a child lacks birth registration, because this is an official act by the state recognising the place of birth and parentage of a child – precisely those facts which are usually critical to the acquisition of nationality at birth. While not every child without a birth certificate is stateless, nor even necessarily so under threat of statelessness as to be considered “at risk”, there are situations in which this risk becomes real – for instance where lack 11 - See further section 1.3 below. 18