2019 Statelessness & Citizenship Review 1(2) systems in place to identify stateless individuals.4 Even with these limitations in the quality and quantity of available data on statelessness, there are a reported 3.9 million people currently stateless in just 78 countries. 5 With reliable statistical information from all states globally this number would certainly be significantly higher. However, a majority of states in the world do not have holistic mechanisms specifically designed to identify statelessness, to report on statelessness or to move stateless people out of the shadows into legal existence. Given that nationality can be granted or confirmed by a state only, and most states have no means of systematically identifying those who are stateless, this represents a significant problem in any effort to end this anomaly. Enter the #IBelong Campaign to End Statelessness. While the goal of ending statelessness by 2024 may be extraordinarily ambitious, when launched in 2014, key areas for action were clearly outlined as the means to the end. These included, for example, the need to: improve qualitative and quantitative data, ensure identity at birth through birth registration, adopt procedures to determine who is stateless, remove gender barriers to the grant of nationality, prevent arbitrary or discriminatory loss of nationality and so on. In short, an invitation was extended to all states to adopt and effectively implement systems that can and will ensure that statelessness is prevented. Accession to the two international instruments designed decades ago for this purpose, the 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons (‘1954 Convention’) and the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness (‘1961 Convention’), was also underlined as a critical rallying point for the identification, prevention and reduction of statelessness both within and across borders. 6 So, the means to the end was outlined at the outset of the Campaign. 7 What are some of the findings from the High-Level Segment on Statelessness with regard to the status of the Campaign? Certainly, the actual number of reductions in cases of statelessness is relevant to this question. According to data available to UNHCR, well over 200,000 people had their situation of statelessness resolved in the first five years of the Campaign. 8 Kyrgyzstan became the first country in the world to announce that all known cases of statelessness on its territory have been resolved. 9 Indeed, the 2019 Nansen Refugee Award went for the first time to a human rights lawyer working on statelessness, Mr Azizbek Ashurov, whose organisation, the Ferghana Valley 4 5 6 7 8 9 See, eg, Global Trends: Forced Displacement in 2018 (Report, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees 19 June 2019) <https://www.unhcr.org/5d08d7ee7.pdf> (‘Global Trends 2018’). ibid. Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, opened for signature 28 September 1954, 360 UNTS 117 (entered into force 6 June 1960) (‘1954 Convention’); Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, opened for signature 30 August 1961, 989 UNTS 175 (entered into force 13 December 1975) (‘1961 Convention’). See Carol Batchelor, ‘Oral Update on the Preparations for the High-Level Segment on Statelessness at the Seventieth Plenary Session of the Executive Committee: Statement of the Special Advisor on Statelessness’ (Presentation, 75th Meeting of the Standing Committee, Agenda Item 2, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees June 2019) <https://www.unhcr.org/5d0b43cc7>. A formal figure is provided each year in the UNHCR ‘Global Trends’ report. Information available indicates that major reductions in the number of stateless persons occurred in Thailand and Kyrgyzstan. See, eg, Global Trends 2018 (n 4). ‘Kyrgyzstan End Statelessness in Historic First’ (Press Release, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees 4 July 2019) <https://www.unhcr.org/enau/news/press/2019/7/5d1da90d4/kyrgyzstan-ends-statelessness-historic-first.html>. 308