Biometric Technology at the Borders of Citizenship 335 strictly understood, why should other States recognise them? Would that mean that such granted identity, too, is confined to the State granting it with all others not upholding it? On the one hand, the same Convention at Articles 25 and 28 enshrines the right to travel documents for stateless persons who have a residence permit in the host state, as well as their right to administrative assistance of the type that other foreigners would normally be able to obtain from the State of their citizenship, but this is factually harder even if strengthened by Article 6, pursuant to which no requirements can be imposed on stateless persons which they cannot comply with due to being stateless (ibid., 5). While doctrinally sound on paper, these obligations, when it comes to travelling, are only meaningful insofar as the documents granted by the host State under the Convention are granted recognition by the State these individuals intend to travel to. Given the narrow (albeit expanding) subscription base of this Convention (van Waas 2014, 13–14), even assuming that the host State is a signatory, in practice it is unlikely that the destination State will be a signatory as well. Major sending and receiving jurisdictions like Indonesia or India have never ratified the Convention, which is factually ineffective when it comes to cross-border movement. Given that no State is a priori responsible for granting identity documents to a stateless person (ibid., 9), physical presence within a State’s territory is the only way for said person to expect such State’s authorities to release documents – at least on public security grounds; however, international travel remains advised against, therefore there is no need to account for it towards the biometrics infrastructure that enables the identification of stateless individuals. Another applicable treaty is the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, whose claimed status as international customary law is far less persuasive. These two statelessness-specific treaties are complemented by “general” human rights conventions dedicated inter alia to non-discrimination, disability, and childhood.13 States are arguably bound by international law to refrain from enacting laws that may foster legal or factual statelessness (Mohsin 2020, 5), but whether they are under an obligation to progressively reduce the root causes thereof is less settled; this marks the unlikelihood to witness a rapid political resolution of this global issue. The obligation to refrain from producing new statelessness is bearing upon States not only in times of peace, but also (and especially) in conflict scenarios. Indeed, under international humanitarian law (IHL), States shall uphold their duty of care when exercising de facto control over a territory and its population (ICRC 1987, §2.5b). This means inter alia that stateless individuals shall be able to access redress (RecaldeVela 2019); for this to happen, possessing a (citizenship-unlinked?) identity seems a prerequisite. Authoritative adjudicators (e.g. Court of Justice of the European Union 13 For a model questionnaire (sort of a checklist) to support the identification of stateless children, see (European Network on Statelessness 2023).