Give children who can't get any other nationality the nationality of their birth country, with the state bearing the burden of proof
In short
- A child who cannot get any other nationality is given the nationality of the country where they were born.
- Even if parents cannot prove it with papers, the state is responsible for investigating.
- Even if a birth is registered late, the child can get nationality in the same way until adulthood.
- A child's nationality is decided separately from the parents' right to live in the country.
If this comes true
A boy born to parents with no nationality holds a passport from his birth country for the first time, and boards a bus with his friends for a school exchange trip to the neighboring country.
Perhaps
The story that "if you are born here, you get nationality" might swell far beyond the border, and some people might cross dangerous routes just to give birth here.
Water so far 💧 0
The proposal in detail
This proposal would write into each country's nationality law that when a child is born on a country's territory and cannot get the nationality of any other country, the child is given the nationality of the birth country at the time the birth is registered. It covers cases where the parents have no nationality, where the parents' country's law does not pass nationality to children born abroad, where the parents are unknown, and similar cases. What differs from the usual way is where the burden of proof is placed. Instead of the parents having to prove with documents that the child cannot get another nationality, the state must grant nationality unless it can check and show, within a set period, that the child can actually get another nationality. It is not enough that the child might be able to get another country's nationality; the child must actually be registered there. Even if the birth is registered late, the child is treated the same way until becoming an adult. If it turns out after nationality is granted that the child already had another nationality, it is not withdrawn until adulthood, and even when it is withdrawn, the child is not left without nationality. The parents' residence status is handled separately from this nationality, and parents do not automatically gain a right to stay because of their child's nationality. Countries would also work together to compare information about children without nationality.
BenefitsNo new stateless children will be born
By moving the burden of proof to the state, the procedure that demanded proof of something that cannot be proven, the biggest cause of stateless children, disappears. Since a child is registered as a member of one country from birth, they can take the basics of life for granted, from school, medical care and vaccination to future work and marriage. Statelessness is passed from parent to child, so cutting this chain at the first person prevents suffering across many generations. Stateless people lack documents to confirm who they are, which makes them easy targets for human trafficking and unfair working conditions, and being given nationality makes it easier to protect them from such harm. From the state's side too, stateless people leave a gap in its picture of how residents actually live, and when every child is registered, planning for schools and medical care becomes easier. Because nationality is separated from the parents' right to stay, its handling is less likely to be pulled into fights over immigration policy and is easier to decide as a matter of children's rights.
DrawbacksThe birth country carries the burden and the disputes of granting nationality
Under this proposal, if no other country grants nationality, the birth country takes the child automatically. So there is a risk that a country that should pass on its own nationality neglects the procedure, or changes its law so as not to grant nationality to children born abroad, pushing the responsibility onto others. That burden would fall unevenly on countries where many stateless people live and countries that many immigrants come to. Also, even if nationality is separated from the parents' right to stay, it is hard in reality to separate a child who has nationality from parents who have no residence status, and new conflicts and painful choices would arise over deporting the parents. The oversimplified story that "if you are born here, you get nationality" may spread, and it cannot be ruled out that some people would cross dangerous routes and borders in order to give birth. For the state to finish checking within the deadline whether another nationality exists, inquiries to foreign government offices take a lot of effort and money, and there would be cases where nationality is granted without the checking being finished. Nationality is the basic decision about who counts as a member of a country, so there would likely also be strong resistance to no longer being able to choose that for itself.
Learn the background
Around the world, there are people who have no nationality in any country. Without nationality, many basics of life become difficult, such as going to school, seeing a doctor, getting a job, registering a marriage, and holding a passport, and their children inherit the same condition. Statelessness arises because countries decide nationality in different ways and some people fall into the gaps, because the parents themselves have no nationality, and because of conflict, the breakup of countries, discriminatory laws, and more. The principle of not producing stateless children is written into international agreements, and many countries have agreed to it. Even so, it has not advanced in practice. One reason is that, in the procedures, parents must prove that their child has no nationality. Since there is no document anywhere that shows a lack of nationality, this proof is nearly impossible. Another is the political worry that granting nationality easily will increase immigration, so government offices in each country tend to prefer leaving the child stateless. In the meantime, the child grows up without the basics of life.
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This proposal was written in Japanese by AI (claude-opus-5-5, policy version 2026-10-23b) and translated by AI (claude-sonnet-5-5). Nobody has checked the facts. Read the original (日本語) How the AI writes