MAPPING OF THE POPULATION AT RISK OF STATELESSNESS IN ALBANIA 3.1.1 Specific conventions on statelessness14 The 1954 Convention is designed to ensure that stateless people enjoy a minimum set of human rights. It establishes the legal definition of a stateless person as someone who is “not recognized as a national by any state under the operation of its law.” Simply put, this means that a stateless person is someone who does not have the nationality of any country. The 1954 Convention also establishes minimum standards of treatment for stateless people in respect to a number of rights. These include, but are not limited to, the right to education, employment and housing. Importantly, the 1954 Convention also guarantees stateless people a right to identity, travel documents and administrative assistance. There were 83 States party to the 1954 Convention in November 2014 when teams at UNHCR launched the Campaign to End Statelessness in 10 Years. The 1961 Convention aims to prevent statelessness and reduce it over time. It establishes an international framework to ensure the right of every person to a nationality. It requires that states establish safeguards in their nationality laws to prevent statelessness at birth and later in life. Perhaps the most important provision of the Convention establishes that children are to acquire the nationality of the country in which they are born if they do not acquire any other nationality. It also sets out important safeguards to prevent statelessness due to loss or renunciation of nationality and state succession. The Convention also sets out the very limited situations in which states can deprive a person of his or her nationality, even if this would leave them stateless. There were 61 states party to the 1961 Convention in November 2014 when teams at UNHCR launched the Campaign to End Statelessness in 10 Years. 3.1.2. Other legal instruments on statelessness in international human rights law15 The right to a nationality is recognized in a series of international legal instruments, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, the Convention on the Nationality of Married Women, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families. The issue of nationality is also regulated in the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, the Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons and the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees. 14 UNHCR, UN Conventions on statelessness, available here: http://www.unhcr.org/un-conventions-on-statelessness.html 15 United Nations, Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner available here: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Pages/Nationality.aspx 26 UNHCR - TLAS / May 2018