From a Traditional International Law Approach to a Human Rights-Based Approach to Statelessness Rapporteurs have also published reports and made recommendations related to statelessness, ranging from the facilitation of birth registration to the removal of discriminatory provisions.122 Regional human rights mechanisms have also demonstrated their relevance in tackling statelessness. Various judgments of regional human rights courts deserve mentioning. Although the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR)123 does not include the right to a nationality, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has dealt with nationality and statelessness issues on the basis of Article 8 on the right to respect for private and family life. By contrast, the ACHR does recognise the right to a nationality, and the IACtHR has rendered a number of progressive judgments in that regard. In Yean and Bosico children, the IACtHR held that the right to a nationality is non-derogable, and that States’ freedom to determine who their nationals are is limited by the prohibition of discrimination and the obligation to prevent, avoid and reduce statelessness.124 The IACtHR confirmed this reasoning in Expelled Dominicans and Haitians.125 On the African continent, the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights recognised in Anudo Ochieng v. Tanzania the right to a nationality, as enshrined in Article 15 UDHR, as customary international law.126 3. The elimination of statelessness as a fair outcome The traditional international law approach to statelessness was gradually replaced by the human rights based-approach. While the technical causes of statelessness are still relevant in many situations, they have been pushed to the back in the understanding of the statelessness phenomenon. Scholars and practitioners have identified underlying human rights causes, such as systemic discrimination on various grounds, migration and deficient civil registration systems, as the true motors of statelessness worldwide. It also appears that the solutions developed over time to address statelessness have been tailored to the understanding of the causes of the phenomenon. Whereas the 1961 Convention only addressed the three technical causes of statelessness identified at the time, i.e. conflicts of laws, deprivation of nationality and State succession, resolutions of the HRC, for instance, have addressed some of the ‘new’ causes of statelessness, such as gender discrimination and arbitrary deprivation on other discriminatory grounds, and the lack of birth registration.127 Periodic Review: UPR Third Cycle Evaluation and Lessons for the Future’ (17 March 2023), 6 <https://files.institutesi.org/Statelessness_in_the_UPR_Evaluation_Report.pdf>. 122 See e.g. HRC ‘Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar’ (14 March 2017) UN Doc A/HRC/34/67, para. 90(d); HRC ‘Visit to Tajikistan: Report of the Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially women and children, Siobhán Mullally’ (5 May 2022) UN Doc A/HRC/50/33/Add.1, para. 88(c). 123 European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (adopted 4 November 1950, entered into force 3 September 1953) ETS 5. 124 Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR), Case of the Girls Yean and Bosico v. Dominican Republic (Judgment) [2008], paras. 136, 140. 125 IACtHR, Caso personas Dominicanas y Haitianas expulsadas vs. República Dominicana (Judgment) [2014], para. 256. 126 African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, The matter of Anudo Ochieng Anudo v. United Republic of Tanzania (Judgment) [2018] 012/2015, para. 76. 127 See e.g. HRC ‘Birth registration and the right of everyone to recognition everywhere as a person before the law’ (3 April 2012) UN Doc A/HRC/RES/19/9; HRC ‘The right to a nationality: women and children’ (16 July 2012) UN Doc A/HRC/RES/20/4; HRC ‘Human rights and arbitrary deprivation of nationality’ (15 July 2016) UN Doc A/HRC/RES/32/5. European University Institute 13