1. Introduction Over ten million people worldwide are stateless, including several hundred thousand in Europe. Not having a nationality limits people’s life chances and can obstruct the enjoyment of even the most basic rights. It also increases people’s vulnerability to poverty, marginalisation, exploitation and detention. As such, statelessness presents an urgent challenge to the fulfilment of human rights, requiring concerted action from governments, international organisations and civil society groups. The European Network on Statelessness (ENS) is a civil society alliance dedicated to strengthening the often unheard voice of stateless people in Europe and to advocate for the full respect of their human rights. In recognition of the immediate and pressing needs of Europe’s stateless people, the first Europe-wide ENS campaign initiative (launched the 14th of October 2013) was tailored towards increasing awareness of their situation and strengthening domestic protection frameworks.1 Notwithstanding the importance of protecting the rights of stateless people, the only truly adequate response to statelessness is to realise its eradication. This is a target that has recently been made explicit by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, António Guterres, who has called on states to work towards ending statelessness within the next decade.2 ENS wholeheartedly endorses this goal and will actively support it.3 2 The Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Nils Muiznieks, has spoken out strongly on the need for European governments to take measures specifically to prevent childhood statelessness: There should be no stateless children in Europe. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, ratified by every Council of Europe member state, provides that all children have a right to a nationality. The Convention’s overarching principle is that “In all actions concerning children […] the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration.” It is clearly in the best interest of the child to have citizenship from birth. Across Europe today, and among children of European parents in other parts of the world, children are still being born into statelessness. Many have inherited this status from their parents, as one publication has pointed out “as if it were some sort of genetic disease”.6 Others have found themselves the unfortunate and unsuspecting victim of a gap or conflict in nationality laws. The lack of a thorough commitment and diligent efforts to prevent childhood statelessness is currently the most significant ongoing cause of new cases of statelessness in the region.7 While the eradication of statelessness is an ambitious target, a straightforward and practicable first step is to stop the spread of statelessness, in particular by preventing statelessness among children. It is estimated that half of the world’s stateless population are children,4 the vast majority of whom have been stateless since birth and have never known the protection or sense of belonging which a nationality bestows. By realising every child’s right to acquire a nationality – recognised as a fundamental children’s right5 – children will be spared the insecurity and indignity of statelessness. Moreover, the often intergenerational cycle of statelessness will be broken, contributing significantly towards the ultimate eradication of statelessness. Yet childhood statelessness is thoroughly preventable. There are international and regional standards that set out not just the obligation to protect a child’s right to a nationality, but also concrete norms that can be implemented to achieve this goal. Contained within the 1961 United Nations Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, the 1997 European Convention on Nationality and the 2006 Council of Europe Convention on the Avoidance of Statelessness in relation to State Succession are detailed safeguards designed to ensure that all children acquire a nationality – while also respecting the overall freedom of states to set the conditions for acquisition and loss of nationality in accordance with their own laws and traditions. These instruments set out a simple, low-cost, yet effective pathway for the prevention of childhood statelessness. Today, the number of accessions to these conventions are climbing,8 additional guidance on the content and application of the 1 See also the ENS publication Statelessness determination and the protection status of stateless persons. A summary guide of good practices and factors to consider when designing nationality determination and protection mechanisms, December 2013. 2 The High Commissioner first made this call in his speech to UNHCR’s Executive Committee in October 2012 (http://www.unhcr.org/506986825.html) and repeated this call in his speech the following year (http://www.unhcr. org/524ae6179.html), when it was also echoed by UNHCR’s Director of International Protection, Volker Turk (http:// www.unhcr.org/524d26059.html). 3 A core element of the mission statement of the European Network on Statelessness is the conviction that all human beings have a right to a nationality. See further http://www.statelessness.eu/about-us/mission-statement. 4 See UNHCR/Plan International, Under the radar and under protected. The urgent need to address stateless children’s rights, 2012. 5 Among others in Article 7 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. See further section 2 on children’s right to a nationality. 6 P. Leclerc, R. Colville, “In the shadows”, Refugees Magazine, 2007. 7 In terms of overall scale, the majority of stateless people living in Europe today owe their situation to state succession – in particular, the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. However, in the years since these major political upheavals, new cases of statelessness have emerged, mainly among children and most significantly because the measures in place to prevent statelessness from being passed on from stateless parents are inadequate. 8 Accession to the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, in particular, has massively picked up pace thanks to an effective accessions campaign spearheaded by UNHCR since the Convention’s 50th anniversary in 2011. Twenty-two new state parties have joined in the last two and a half years – more than during the entire first 30 years after the instrument was adopted. Moreover, at a United Nations Rule of Law meeting at the end of 2012, the European Union announced, on behalf of all of its member states, that “the EU Member States which have not yet done so pledge to address the issue of statelessness […] by considering the ratification of the 1961 UN Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. 3