What is the global picture? For many years, UNHCR has estimated the number of stateless persons worldwide to be at least 10 million.2 In this year’s Global Trends report there is a stronger emphasis on outlining what data is available – which cumulatively captures just under 3.9 million stateless persons – and then drawing attention to the gaps that persist in global statistical reporting. The reality that “fewer than half of countries have official statistics on stateless people” leads UNHCR to observe once again that the “true global figure is estimated to be significantly higher”. This year, UNHCR concludes that “millions of people” are stateless but without giving a more specific approximation. The “Trends at a glance” section of the Global Trends report also no longer features any information about the state of statelessness – whereas prior to 2017, this included data about the global stateless population. The implications of not having statelessness in this summary section at the top of the report is to reduce visibility of the issue at a crucial time – half way through the #iBelong campaign, when greater attention, political commitment and resourcing to address statelessness is essential. Measuring the scale of statelessness is inherently challenging, both methodologically and politically,3 and UNHCR has called upon states to improve quantitative and qualitative data on stateless populations as Action 10 of the Global Action Plan to End Statelessness under UNHCR’s #iBelong campaign. In this Global Trends report, UNHCR has collated data from 78 countries, the highest ever number of states for which statistics have been reported. This is an increase by three countries, since the start of the #iBelong campaign in 2014. The milestone that had been set for 2017 was 100 states and by 2020 the aim was to have quantitative data available for 120 states. As has been the case since UNHCR began its statistical reporting on statelessness in 2004, the focus is on persons who do not also have what UNHCR describes as “another reportable status” (e.g. as refugees, IDPs or asylum seekers). The reporting in relation to stateless Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh and Rohingya IDPs in Myanmar continues to be the sole highlighted exception to this rule – they were “counted” last year as both IDPs/refugees and in the statelessness data, and this is the case again in the new Global Trends report. As the Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion (ISI) has previously commented, one implication of the methodological decision to not report non-refugee stateless populations is that the numbers reported and wider global estimate given do not account for all persons who meet the definition of a stateless person under international law.4 The Rohingya figures only include two specific sub-sets (Bangladesh and Myanmar) which overlap with the refugee and IDP definitions. The figure for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh primarily comprises those who fled to Bangladesh after October 2016 (approximately 835,000), and the long-term ‘registered refugee’ Rohingya population in the country (approximately 34,000), with the balance being a partial count of unregistered Rohingya refugees who were in the country prior to October 2016.5 However, Column E, which has been newly inserted into the UNHCR statistics Table 7, is entitled ‘total number of stateless people including displaced Rohingya population from Myanmar’. This misleadingly implies that comprehensive figures of displaced Rohingya refugees in all countries have been included here. However, even for countries in which many Rohingya refugees register with UNHCR and there are known large Rohingya populations, – such as Malaysia, India, Thailand, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan – there are no entries under Column E. No update is provided in this year’s report on the status of the “review” of UNHCR’s statistical reporting methodology 2 As detailed at the end of this section, ISI has estimated the global stateless population to be at least 15 million, including stateless Palestinians and stateless refugees. See Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion, The World’s Stateless, 2014, available at http://www.institutesi.org/worldsstateless.pdf. This estimate remains unchanged in light of the newest global statistical reporting. 3 See Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion, ‘Counting the world’s stateless: reflections on statistical reporting on statelessness’ in UNHCR Statistical Yearbook 2013, available at: http://www.unhcr.org/54cf99f29.pdf. 4 A stateless person is someone who “is not considered as a national by any state under the operation of its law”. Article 1 of the 1954 Convention on the Status of Stateless Persons. 5 See UNHCR, Bangladesh Refugee Emergency: Population Factsheet, as of 15 July 2019, available at: https://data2.unhcr.org/en/documents/download/70356. 2