1brings an important issue to greater attention and focus. Our organisation, Human Rights Watch, works to uphold the principle of government accountability, and an important part of this is to ensure that individuals—citizens and others within a state’s borders—are offi cially recognised and counted. The most widely adopted international human rights treaty in his tory, the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child, outlines governments’ obligations to pro vide birth registration. 2 Human Rights Watch’s documenta tion of govern ment denials of civil registra tion, especially concern ing refugees, migrants, and minor ity groups, 3,4