114 T. MCGEE engage with statelessness situations due to possible conflict between its now multiple mandates. A 2001 study speculated that, “such an involvement will have an adverse effect on the organization’s activities in relation to refugees, returnees and asylum-seekers” (Engstrom & Obi, 2001, para. 7; see also Crisp, 2010). Although statelessness had been taken up by, and had become a subject of, international law, and progressively internationalized from the 1930s to 2000s, a globalized statelessness response only came much later. Tellingly, Loescher’s (2001) monograph detailing UNHCR’s evolution in more than 400 pages barely made a mention of the statelessness mandate. Instead, he focused on the agency’s involvement in IDP protection and its “mission creep” into repatriation and postconflict reintegration (Loescher, 2001, pp. 281–324). This reflects that statelessness still played only a minor role within the global humanitarian agenda, with UNHCR continuing to focus on other “persons of concern” (primarily refugees, but increasingly also IDPs and returnees). Seet (2016) considered the globalization of UNHCR’s statelessness responsibility to have evolved gradually as, “Over the past two decades, ExCom conclusions and General Assembly resolutions have progressively developed UNHCR’s mandate on statelessness” (p. 11). For instance, in 2006, the General Assembly bolstered UNHCR’s statelessness responsibilities by explicitly ascribing it a global responsibility for identification, prevention, and reduction of statelessness and the protection of stateless persons (UNGA Resolution 61/137, 2006). Despite this further landmark, programming specifically responding to statelessness situations was still limited, patchy, and lacked coherent overarching strategy, partly because most funding remained dedicated to refugee emergencies. Likewise, although acknowledging that “[t]he problem of statelessness exists throughout the world and may be identified as a global issue,” Kingston argued in 2013 that, “highlighting solutions that are similarly global in nature present[s] a major obstacle for issue emergence” (p. 82). Although international interest around statelessness gradually resurged in the late twentieth century, it was not until 2014 that the UNHCR began to conceive of and frame its statelessness work in global terms. This occurred through the launching of its IBelong campaign, which has served as the central pillar of the globalization of statelessness work (discussed further in the next section). Of course, this 2014 global turn in approaches to statelessness would not have been possible without building on the key developments within the international human rights system over earlier decades. In addition to progressive strengthening of UNHCR’s mandate for statelessness worldwide alongside its more well-established refugee work, the 2011 Ministerial Meeting, with more than 60 states making statelessness-related pledges, can be considered as prelude to a globalized response to statelessness (UNHCR, 2011). Indeed, coinciding with the 50-year anniversary of the 1961 Convention, this engagement constituted a “quantum leap” (UNHCR, 2014a, p. 7). Building on this momentum, the IBelong campaign was born. Its foundational discourse and promotional branding speaks to constructions of statelessness as a global(ized) issue. The next section considers the context in 2014 within which this campaign emerged. 2014 as culmination of global(ized) statelessness discourse The UNHCR has played a prominent role in shaping understandings of statelessness, culminating in the 2014 launch of the global IBelong Campaign to End Statelessness within a decade (UNHCR, 2014d). The campaign launch represents a significant milestone in the statelessness sector, signaling the start of concerted long-term (multiyear) strategic efforts to address the issue. However, 2014 should be understood as the wider confluence of developments (including some in the months prior to the IBelong campaign launch) that have collectively “globalized” the framing of the international community’s response to statelessness. This can be understood through Carpenter’s (2007) concept of issue (non)emergence within transnational advocacy networks (see also Kingston, 2013). On this point, I support van Waas’s observation from that year (2014) that, although it is challenging to pinpoint a precise moment of arrival, “we may, indeed, be