Statelessness Working Paper Series 2017/04 Besides the costs associated with the registration of the birth, the documents cited in those two sources are the same. Therefore, it seems marriage is a precondition to the registration of the birth. Young couples whose marriage has not been legalised could therefore be prevented from registering the birth of their child. Moreover, the UN Committee on the Right of the Child reported—in its concluding observations on Syria in 2012—issues with birth registration in the case of a marriage between a Muslim and non-Muslim or children born out of wedlock.67 Moreover, despite the law providing for the automatic acquisition of Syrian nationality, it seems that the registration of the birth is nonetheless still a prerequisite for acquiring Syrian nationality if born abroad. Furthermore, the discretionary powers by a committee to register the birth of a child once the latter is 14 years old or older might put currently recognized refugee children at risk of statelessness in the long term, due to lacking birth registration and thus proof of paternal link. This could be used as a tool against the opposition to prevent children from obtaining Syrian nationality. 5.1.1. Ensuring Paternal Filiation on the Birth Certificate Ensuring filiation with the father is important to prevent statelessness as SNL discriminates against women in passing along their nationality if the child is born abroad. The birth certificate only mentions the name of the mother. The filiation with the mother is not problematic as it is automatically presumed to be the person designated as such on the birth certificate.68 The filiation with the father however is established at the municipality where the birth occurred through recognition. Recognition of the child by the father can be done before the birth of the child, during the declaration of birth, or after the declaration of birth.69 In the latter case, a court judgment will be necessary to establish the filiation. Establishing the filiation with the father is much easier if the parents are married. The child born during the marriage has, as the father, the husband. 70 However, the documents presented, such as a marriage certificate, must be legalised in the country of origin even though exceptions apply while a country's internal situation makes such steps difficult, such as in the case of war.71 Currently, the site of the Federal Public Service (FPS) Foreign Affairs of Belgium still gives four possibilities to legalise a document from the Syrian Republic: legalisation by the Foreign Affairs Ministry in Syria, legalisation by the Syrian Embassy in Beirut, legalisation by the Lebanese Foreign Affairs Ministry in Beirut or legalisation by the Belgian Embassy in Beirut.72 None of those possible sites are located in Belgium and therefore the legalisation seems quite difficult to undertake to legitimise the marriage certificate. If the marriage cannot be proven due to lack of legalisation of the marriage certificate, the procedure to follow is the one applying to unmarried couples. If the parents are not married, the procedure for the father's recognition of the child is in accordance with the law of the state of which the father has the nationality when the recognition of the child takes place. 73 The head of the Liège Department however mentioned a recent judgment that 67 UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC), Consideration of reports submitted by States parties under article 44 of the Convention: Convention on the Rights of the Child: concluding observations : Syrian Arab Republic, 9 February 2012, CRC/C/SYR/CO/3-4, para. 43, http://www.refworld.org/docid/5305e86f4.html. 68 Belgium. Code Civil - Titre Préliminaire et Livre 1: des personnes (Civil Code), 1804, Article 312. 69 Belgian Federal Public Service, Reconnaissance d’un enfant, 2017, https://www.belgium.be/fr/famille/enfants/naissance/reconnaissance. 70 Ibid. Article 315. 71 Federal Public Service Foreign Affairs, Questions and answers about the legalization of documents (2012), http://diplomatie.belgium.be/fr/Services/Legalisation_de_documents/faq/#5. 72 Ibid. 73 Belgium, Loi portant le Code de Droit International Privé (Law on the Code of Private International Law), 2004, Article 62. 11