Statelessness Working Paper Series No. 2017/02 Article 253 of the Constitution gives the Parliament “power to make any law for the whole or any part of the territory of India for implementing any treaty, agreement or convention with any other country or countries or any decision made at any international conference, association or other body,” which shows that India is in favour of international law however in practice it has not been fulfilling its human rights obligations under international law on matters relating to statelessness. In the context of inadequate consensus on international standards which do not consider the geopolitical complexities of statelessness, India has favoured to enter into regional agreements to address statelessness instead.128 However, the existing ad hoc measures taken to deal with stateless persons appear to be founded on selective political conveniences rather than fostering respect for the rights of stateless persons under international law. Such methods will not adequately address issues of statelessness in the long-term until a uniform law on the protection of stateless persons is enacted as it would create a framework by which the status of stateless persons would be accorded based on the principle of equality and agreed standards of determination and treatment. Such a framework has the potential to reduce frictions in India’s bilateral relations, as the act would be understood as a humanitarian and legal action, rather than a political calculation. Even if there is a regional agreement in place to handle stateless persons between India and other parties, it is advisable that India either accedes to the Conventions on Statelessness or enacts its own laws with the view of ensuring mechanisms catering to and preserving the rights of existing stateless persons but also preventing future statelessness. 5. Conclusion This article aimed to analyse India’s nationality laws in light of the current international legal framework surrounding statelessness. Statelessness in India, much like the rest of the world, is caused by a variety of factors. The continuing difficulties of decolonisation paired with new socio-political trends have heavily had an influence on the restrictive citizenship laws. The possible avenues open to stateless persons to acquire citizenship would be through registration or naturalisation, however there are certain provisions in the Citizenship Act in conjunction with the Citizenship Rules that create obstacles for stateless persons to acquire citizenship. Moreover, there are no safeguards against statelessness arising from renunciation, termination or deprivation of nationality, in fact they seem rather punitive. Without positive action by the State to change the discriminatory nationality laws, statelessness will continue being passed on from one generation to the next. Thus it should be in the interest of India to accede to the Stateless Conventions and change its Citizenship laws as provided. In order to address current issues of statelessness efficiently and secure a results based method of preventing future statelessness, it is imperative that India accede to the 1954 and 1961 Conventions on Statelessness and implement them into domestic law. Acceding to the Conventions would create positive obligations on India’s part by requiring it to make the necessary changes in its national framework. By acceding to the Conventions, India would be obliged to incorporate the internationally accepted standards relating to nationality into its corresponding legislative provisions. This is desirable not only for stateless persons as such a move would strengthen national frameworks on nationality laws and allow such persons to access their rights and privileges as per the Conventions, but would 128 See Sen, S., “Paradoxes of the International Regime of Care,” Refugees and the State: Practices of Asylum and Care in India, 1947-2000, SAGE Publications Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi, 2003, pp. 404-405. 17