22. Conflicts between nationality laws may arise when a child is born to parents from different countries which apply different principles when conferring nationality, either based on descent (jus sanguinis) or place of birth (jus soli), and depend on whether or not the child was born abroad. A combination of the two principles is often the case and, as a result, a child’s birthplace and parentage can entail that neither nationality may be acquired by the child at birth. Therefore, it is of critical importance to ensure that the national legislative framework provides effective response to these situations preventing children from being born stateless in Lithuania. 23. While requiring each States Party “to grant its nationality to a person born in its territory who would otherwise be stateless”, Article 1 (1) of the 1961 Convention allows to either grant nationality at birth by operation of law (i.e. automatically) or subsequently upon application. 24. If Lithuania opts to continue granting nationality to some of the persons born on its territory who would otherwise be stateless by application, it then should be done in full compliance with the requirements outlined in Article 1 (1) and (2) of the 1961 Convention and must not have the effect of leaving the child stateless for a considerable period of time. In this respect, it is important to ensure that the application procedure set out in Article 18 (2) of the Law on Citizenship provides that children born stateless on the territory of Lithuania who are not covered by Article 15 guarantees have a non-discretionary right to Lithuanian citizenship. This requirement flows from Article 1 (1) of the 1961 Convention which employs the imperative wording “shall grant its nationality”, and indicates with regard to the application procedure that “no such application may be rejected” unless one or more conditions allowed by Article 1 (2) apply. 25. In this respect, UNHCR notes that the application procedure set out in Article 18 (2) of the Law on Citizenship is essentially of discretionary nature. This is because Article 18 (2) stipulates that “a stateless person who was born in the territory of the Republic of Lithuania may be granted citizenship of the Republic of Lithuania”, while Article 18 (6) lays down a general principle that persons who meet the eligibility conditions “shall be granted citizenship of the Republic of Lithuania having regard to the interests of the Republic of Lithuania.” 26. Furthermore, Article 1 (2) of the 1961 Convention lists exhaustively conditions for granting nationality upon an application.20 UNHCR acknowledges that the proposed amendments to Article 18 (4) eliminate some of the requirements which currently go beyond those permissible under Article 1(2) of the 1961 Convention, i.e. the requirements to pass examinations in the Lithuanian language and the fundamentals of the Constitution and to have legal means of subsistence. 27. The Law Proposal, however, retains the requirement stipulating that the stateless persons concerned must not fall under one or more of the exclusion clauses of Article 22 of the Law on Citizenship. Pursuant to this Article, citizenship of Lithuania may not be granted to persons who (i) prepared, attempted to commit or committed international crimes such as aggression, genocide, crimes against humanity and war crime or criminal acts against the Republic of Lithuania; (ii) prior to coming to reside in Lithuania, were sentenced to imprisonment in another state for a premeditated crime which is a grave crime under laws of Lithuania, or were punished for a grave crime in Lithuania, (iii) in accordance with the procedure laid down by law, are not entitled to obtain a document attesting to the right of permanent residence in Lithuania. UNHCR understands that the latter requirement implies that the applicants may not pose a threat to national security or public order of Lithuania. 28. The above conditions are broader than those permitted under Article 1 (2) of the 1961 Convention, which allows to exlcude only those persons who have been convicted of an offence against national security or 20 See supra note 16, UNHCR Guidelines on Statelessness No. 4, paras. 36 - 48. 5