Annex: Uganda’s International obligations 1. Uganda is not a state party to the 1961 Statelessness Convention, but it has ratified the 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons without any reservations. 2. Uganda has international obligations to protect the right to a nationality and to protect the rights of stateless persons on the basis of other UN and regional treaties to which it is party. These include, among others, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (Article 24(3) ICCPR), the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (Articles 2.2 and 3 ICESCR), the Convention on the Rights of the Child (Article 2, 3, 7 and 8 CRC), the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (Article 9 CEDAW), the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (Article 5(d)(iii) CERD), the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (Article 18, CRPD), the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families (Article 29 CMW), and the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (Article 25 CED). The right to a nationality is also protected in the Universal Declaration on Human rights under Article 15 (UDHR). Uganda does not have any relevant reservations to these treaties. 3. Further, various UN Treaty Bodies have made recommendations to Uganda to address issues relating to the right to nationality and statelessness. In 2016, the CRPD recommended Uganda to revoke the provisions in the Uganda Citizenship and Immigration Control Act (2009) as well as in the Immigration Act (1970) that hinder “the right to movement and liberty and acquisition of citizenship of persons with disabilities”, as well as ensure that children with disabilities are registered at birth.62 In 2015, the Committee on the Economic, Social and Cultural Rights recommended Uganda to increase its efforts safeguarding universal birth registration, by, among other things, reviewing the Birth and Death Registration Act, and raising awareness with regards to birth registration among parents.63 In 2005, the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) recommended, in light of Uganda’s international obligation with regards to Article 7 of the CRC, that Uganda strengthen its measures that aim to ensure that all children born in Ugandan territory are registered at birth via facilitated methods. The Committee also recommended Uganda to also register those children that have not yet been registered.64 4. At the UNHCR’s High Level Segment on Statelessness in October 2019, Uganda pledged the following:65 a. By 2021, complete a legal study on statelessness and citizenship in order to better understand and address the factors leaving certain populations stateless or at risk of statelessness and to support comprehensive legal and constitutional reform. Concluding observations on the initial report of Uganda, CRPD/C/UGA/CO/1, 12 May 2016, Recommendation 37. Concluding observations on the initial report of Uganda, E/C.12/UGA/CO/1, 8 July 2015, Protection of Children. 64 Concluding observation of the Committee on the Rights of the Child: Uganda, CRC/C/UGA/CO/2, 23 November 2005, recommendation 38. 65 See: https://www.unhcr.org/ibelong/results-of-the-high-level-segment-on-statelessness/. 62 63 13