Citizens Will Be Able to Specify Their Exact Place of Birth in Passports Under New Amendment

The Republic of Armenia is proposing to allow citizens to specify their exact place of birth in their passports. The government has approved a draft amendment to the laws on "Passports of the Republic of Armenia" and "Identification Cards."

The justification for the decision states: "Currently, the place of birth field in the passport (identification card) of a citizen of the Republic of Armenia states the country in which the citizen was born. This approach creates problems in cases where the citizen's place of birth is a state not recognized by the Republic of Armenia or an internationally disputed territory. The issue has been discussed with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia, from which a study of international practices was received indicating that the overwhelming majority of developed countries specify not the state where a person was born but rather the city, village, or region of birth in the passports issued to their citizens; some countries also include the state.

This positional formation is based on the fact that, considering international standards, in any situation where specifying a particular state in the "place of birth" field is problematic or for any other valid or obvious reason not appropriate, countries note only the city, village, or region of birth in citizens' passports, referencing documentation that substantiates this fact (birth certificate, foreign passport, or other document).

As a result, it has been proposed to make corresponding amendments to the legislation of the Republic of Armenia, allowing citizens the option to specify the area where they were born, which serves as the basis for the legislative change proposed in this article," the justification document states.