2006 (Executive Committee—57th Session)
States and research undertaken by academic institutions and experts, civil society and its own staff in the field
on the magnitude of statelessness;
(f) Encourages UNHCR to continue to provide technical advice and operational support to States, and to
promote an understanding of the problem of statelessness, also serving to facilitate the dialogue between
interested States at the global and regional levels;
(g) Takes note of the cooperation established with the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) in the field of
nationality and statelessness, and notes further the 2005 Nationality and Statelessness Handbook for
Parliamentarians which is being used in national and regional parliaments to raise awareness and build capacity
among State administrations and civil society;
Prevention of Statelessness
(h) Calls on States to facilitate birth registration and issuance of birth or other appropriate certificates as a
means to providing an identity to children and where necessary and when relevant, to do so with the assistance
of UNHCR, UNICEF, and UNFPA;
(i) Encourages States to consider examining their nationality laws and other relevant legislation with a view
to adopting and implementing safeguards, consistent with fundamental principles of international law, to prevent
the occurrence of statelessness which results from arbitrary denial or deprivation of nationality; and requests
UNHCR to continue to provide technical advice in this regard;
(j) Notes that statelessness may arise as a result of restrictions applied to parents in passing on nationality to
their children; denial of a woman's ability to pass on nationality; renunciation without having secured another
nationality; automatic loss of citizenship from prolonged residence abroad; deprivation of nationality owing to
failure to perform military or alternative civil service; loss of nationality due to a person's marriage to an alien or
due to a change in nationality of a spouse during marriage; and deprivation of nationality resulting from
discriminatory practices; and requests UNHCR to continue to provide technical advice in this regard;
(k) Stresses that in the event of State succession, the concerned States put in place appropriate measures to
prevent statelessness situations from arising as a result and take action to address such situations;
(l) Encourages States to seek appropriate solutions for persons who have no genuine travel or other identity
documents, including migrants and those who have been smuggled or trafficked, and where necessary and as
appropriate, for the relevant States to cooperate with each other in verifying their nationality status, while fully
respecting the international human rights of these individuals as well as relevant national laws;
(m) Calls upon States Parties to the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons,
Especially Women and Children and the Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air, both
supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, to respect their
obligation to assist in verifying the nationality of the persons referred to them who have been smuggled or
trafficked with a view to issuing travel and identity documents and facilitating the return of such persons; and,
encourages other States to provide similar assistance;
Reduction of Statelessness
(n) Encourages States to give consideration to acceding to the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of
Statelessness and, in regard to States Parties, to consider lifting reservations;
(o) Encourages UNHCR to reinforce its cooperation with other relevant United Nations agencies to assist
States to reduce statelessness, particularly in protracted statelessness situations;
(p) Encourages States, where appropriate and while taking note of the United Nations General Assembly
Resolution 60/129 of 2005, to consider measures to allow the integration of persons in situations of protracted
statelessness, through developing programmes in the field of education, housing, access to health and income
generation, in partnership with relevant United Nations agencies;
(q) Encourages States to safeguard the right of every child to acquire a nationality, particularly where the
child might otherwise be stateless, bearing in mind Article 7 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child
(CRC), and further encourages UNHCR to cooperate with UNICEF and UNFPA to provide technical and
operational support to this end;
(r) Encourages States to actively disseminate information regarding access to citizenship, including
naturalization procedures, through the organization of citizenship information campaigns with the support of
UNHCR, as appropriate;
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