Country Position Paper: Statelessness in Syria as “Syrian” by UNHCR).100 Many have been there for years (from 2012/13) and have been unable to reacquire Syrian nationality even if they are Ajanib.101 Indeed, “the 2011 Decree No. 49 aims at granting nationality to the stateless, but [there is no mention of] any procedure that the Syrian Kurds… could refer to in their countries of asylum, in case they wished to resolve their legal status.”102 5.2 Palestinian Refugees from Syria Palestinians are widely considered to be one of the largest stateless populations in the world. However, the question of the statelessness of Palestinians in inextricably linked to that of Palestinian statehood and nationality policy, which is complex. The recognition of, and the self-identification of Palestinians as ‘stateless’ varies. A relatively small subset have acquired another nationality, but the majority have not, and as per the definition of a stateless person under international law, can be considered as stateless.103 According to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), which was established specifically to provide assistance to ‘Palestine Refugees’, there were 560,000 Palestinian refugees from Syria registered with UNRWA prior to the outbreak of the Syrian civil war. 104 UNRWA estimates that 160,000 registered Palestinian refugees from Syria fled Syria following the outbreak of the civil war, while 438,000 remained in Syria.105 The actual number of Palestinian refugees from Syria is likely to be far higher than this figure, as many were not registered or eligible for registration with UNRWA (known as ‘non-ID Palestinians’106). There are currently no reliable figures on the number of ‘non-ID Palestinians’ from Syria inside or outside the country. However, in Syria’s 2016 State report for the UN Human Rights Council Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review, the Government stated that there are “40,000 Palestinian refugees…not registered [with UNRWA], according to the records of the [Syrian] General Authority for Palestine Arab Refugees (GAPAR).”107 5.2.1 Displacement, Status and Documentation Palestinians across the Arab world have experienced many levels of displacement. For example, this may include initial displacement from Palestine, which in itself may have included several stages across decades, followed by displacement from their initial country of refuge because of another Thomas McGee, Statelessness Displaced: Update on Syria’s Stateless Kurds, Statelessness Working Paper Series No. 2016/02, June 2016, available at: http://www.institutesi.org/WP2016_02.pdf. 101 Thomas McGee, Statelessness Displaced: Update on Syria’s Stateless Kurds, Statelessness Working Paper Series No. 2016/02, June 2016, available at: http://www.institutesi.org/WP2016_02.pdf. 102 Syrians for Truth and Justice, Syrian Citizenship Disappeared: How the 1962 Census destroyed stateless Kurds’ lives and identities, 15 September 2018, at 22, available at: https://www.stj-sy.com/en/view/745 103 Institute on Statelessness and inclusion, the World’s Stateless, 2014 (Chapter VIII) [online] available at: https://files.institutesi.org/worldsstateless.pdf (for more information on Palestinians under UNRWA’s mandate and UNHCR’s refugee and statelessness mandates). Please note that UNHCR has not issued a position with regard to the nationality status of Palestinians. 104 UNRWA, Syria Regional Crisis - Emergency Appeal, 2018, at 1, available at: https://www.unrwa.org/sites/default/files/content/resources/2018_syria_ea_final_web_0.pdf. However, other sources suggest that this figure was 526,744. See for example: Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Thematic Report on Conditions in Syria, 23 October 2017, at 3.9, available at: https://dfat.gov.au/about-us/publications/Documents/country-information-report-syria.pdf 105 UNRWA, Syria Regional Crisis - Emergency Appeal, 2018, at 1, available at: https://www.unrwa.org/sites/default/files/content/resources/2018_syria_ea_final_web_0.pdf 106 "Non-ID Palestinian" is the term commonly used to refer to a Palestinian who is not registered with UNRWA, UNHCR or the authorities of the country in which they reside. See further HYPERLINK "http://www.syrianationality.org/pdf/nationality-documentationstatelessness-syria.pdf" www.syrianationality.org/pdf/nationality-documentation-statelessness-syria.pdf 107 UN Human Rights Council, Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review – National Report of the Syrian Arab Republic, 28 September 2016, at 15, available at: https://undocs.org/en/A/HRC/WG.6/26/SYR/1 100 18