Oxford Monitor of Forced Migration Vol. 7 No. 2
This paper is an initial attempt to address this lack of understanding, by providing an analysis of
the law and policy related to the identification, assessment, and recording of the statelessness of
refugees in the Swedish asylum procedure. It considers the gaps in law and policy that can lead to
a stateless refugee remaining in a prolonged, or possibly indefinite, stateless situation. It will also
discuss the impacts of the temporary asylum law adopted in 2016 (Migrationsverket, 2016d) on
stateless refugees. The analysis will be contextualised within Sweden’s obligations under the 1951
Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol (hereafter 1951 Convention),
specifically on the cessation of refugee status for stateless refugees (UN General Assembly, 1951:
Article 1 C:2-3,6) and the 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons (1954
Convention) (UN General Assembly, 1954).3
Statelessness Refugees Under International Law
Stateless refugees fall under several overlapping international law regimes, as Figure 1 illustrates.
They are under the 1951 Convention and the 1954 Convention simultaneously (UN General
Assembly, 1951 & UN General Assembly, 1954). It is not within the scope of this paper to detail
these overlapping regimes; indeed, this is not necessary as it has been covered by other
commentators (see Akram, 2002; Van Waas, 2008).
Figure 1: The International Law Regimes Covering Stateless Refugees
3
Sweden is a party to both the 1951 and 1954 Conventions.
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