ASSESSMENT OF THE #IBELONG CAMPAIGN MIDPOINT AND THE HIGH-LEVEL SEGMENT ON STATELESSNESS CAROL BATCHELOR ∗ 7 October 2019 marked a critical moment in the #IBelong Campaign to End Statelessness. 1 This decade long undertaking, launched in 2014 by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (‘UNHCR’), reached its mid-point this year. As part of the annual Executive Committee meeting, UNHCR held a High Level Segment on Statelessness to assess the status of the Campaign: achievements and successes in the first five years from 2014–19, and remaining areas to be addressed in the last half of the Campaign from 2019–24. 2 In order to concretise efforts to fill any identified gaps, and thereby end statelessness by 2024, participants including states, international and regional organisations, and nongovernmental organisations (‘NGOs’) were invited to make concrete, timebound and measurable pledges for action. In a watershed moment for the Campaign, it received over 350 pledges from a scope of actors to take steps that will play a role in ending statelessness by 2024. 3 Statelessness is a surreal problem for those afflicted by it. Without a nationality in any country, stateless persons are often relegated to the fringes of society. Many stateless people are not able to undertake daily functions necessary for survival, such as having a legitimate job or doing things that require identification and legal status such as marrying, going to school, getting medical treatment, owning property or traveling. Even leaving the house to shop for groceries can result in detention when an individual cannot show who they are, where they come from, or where they belong in legal terms. In a world composed of states, statelessness is a condition of exclusion, fear and a lack of attachment or belonging. As such, many stateless people live in the shadows, which perpetuates the problem. How then can statelessness be ended? The problem of statelessness itself is unknown in scope and severity. Indeed, data is available, and annually reported on, in relation to only 78 states in the world and this data is only as reliable as the ∗ 1 2 3 Special Advisor on Statelessness, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. The views expressed are those of the author and are not attributable to the United Nations or to United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (‘UNHCR’). ‘#IBelong Campaign to End Statelessness’, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (Web Page) <https://www.unhcr.org/en-au/ibelong-campaign-to-end-statelessness.html>. ‘High Level Segment on Statelessness’, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (Web Page) <https://www.unhcr.org/ibelong/high-level-segment-statelessness/>. ‘Watershed Moment as Countries Step Forward to Tackle Global Statelessness’ (Press Release, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees 11 October 2019) <https://www.unhcr.org/en-au/news/press/2019/10/5da04b1d4/watershed-momentcountries-step-forward-tackle-global-statelessness.html>.