Children are one of the most vulnerable groups and as such are entitled to special protection and safeguarding by the State. Stateless children have no established legal bond with any State and are therefore not guaranteed this protection. The majority of stateless persons are stateless from birth. The main causes of original statelessness are arbitrary deprivation of citizenship, systemic discrimination against certain groups, migration, inadequate civil registration systems and also technical reasons arising from the regulation of granting citizenship in national legis-lation. If an individual does not acquire citizenship at birth, the risk of long-term statelessness increases, which is often maintained across generations.
The international community began to address the issue of statelessness more forcefully in the middle of the last century, with the adoption of two United Nations conventions on stateless-ness. The obligation to prevent statelessness is now part of customary international law, and the provision of nationality at birth represents the most effective way of preventing statelessness. The instruments addressing statelessness and the instruments protecting the child's right to a nationality establish the duty of States to grant nationality to children born on their territory who would otherwise remain stateless. Despite these safeguards, child statelessness remains a reality, mainly due to a lack of political will, inadequate implementation at the national level of legislation, and shortcomings in the identification of stateless children.
Through an analysis of the practice of selected European countries, the master's thesis confirms the hypothesis that European countries do not have adequate mechanisms in place in national legislation to ensure the prevention of child statelessness.
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