Legal briefing on the rights of stateless Palestinians in the UK September 2025 for leave to remain as a stateless person, which will be assessed in more detail in this section. However, before applying for any procedure it is important to consider which legal route is the most appropriate in the particular circumstances of each case. The report ‘Statelessness in practice: Implementation of the UK statelessness application procedure’ and Asylum Aid’s information page on statelessness provide helpful guidance.127 As a signatory to the 1954 Convention, the UK is under an obligation to provide certain rights to stateless persons. In April 2013, the UK Home Office introduced a dedicated statelessness determination procedure (SDP), on the basis of which an individual may be granted leave to remain in the UK as a stateless person.128 This was provided for in the Immigration Rules Part 14: Stateless Persons (which have since been deleted, with the exception of family reunion rules). Any applications made on or after 31 January 2024 are now assessed in relation to the Immigration Rules Appendix Statelessness. However, applications made prior to 31 January 2024 continue to be assessed in relation to the Immigration Rules Part 14. These rules are complemented by Home Office guidance for decision makers, Permission to stay as a stateless person: caseworker guidance (last updated 22 July 2025). A Best Practice Guide for legal practitioners for statelessness and applications for leave to remain has been released by the Immigration Law Practitioners' Association (ILPA) and the Liverpool Law Clinic, and is set to be updated in 2025. A number of issues have been identified with the SDP, including significant errors in decision making, failure on the part of decision makers to make adequate enquiries, as well as the lack of legal aid in England and Wales, and the lack of a right to appeal.129 The Statelessness Index: United Kingdom also provides a comparative overview of how the SDP is benchmarked against international norms and good practices, and in relation to other European countries. Constructive advocacy is ongoing to address these shortfalls, and, notwithstanding these issues, the SDP remains an important route for stateless people who do not qualify for refugee status to acquire leave to remain in the UK. The definition of a ‘stateless person’ in the 1954 Convention is mirrored in S3.1 of the Immigration Rules Appendix Statelessness, which also makes explicit reference to the Convention. A determination of statelessness is therefore made in reference to the definition and exclusion clauses in the 1954 Convention, as well as additional requirements imposed by the Immigration Rules. These requirements include that the applicant must have taken all reasonable steps to acquire (or re-acquire) nationality of any relevant countries, or to establish a right to admission as a permanent resident of any relevant countries.130 Furthermore, the applicant must not fall foul of any of the grounds for refusal under Part 9: Grounds for Refusal. The UK Home Office guidance outlines that ‘[i]n all cases, the burden of proof rests with the applicant, who is expected to co-operate with you to provide sufficient evidence to demonstrate that they are stateless and that there is no country to which they can be removed for purposes of 127 Johanna Bezzano and Judith Carter, Statelessness in practice: Implementation of the UK statelessness application procedure (Liverpool University Law Clinic, 2018) p 10. 128 ibid. For up-to-date information on the SDP in the UK, see ENS, Statelessness Index: United Kingdom. 129 See ENS, Statelessness Index: United Kingdom; UNHCR, Statelessness Determination in the UK: A UNHCR audit of the Home Office approach to decision-making in the Statelessness Determination Procedure (2020) p 22; Liverpool University Law Clinic and Asylum Aid, Ongoing challenges in accessing leave to remain in the UK as a stateless person (2020). 130 Immigration Rules Appendix Statelessness, S 3.2 and 2.1. 28