Statelessness, Development, and Protection of ‘Disadvantaged Groups’ birth or long-term residence, with a state. These two contexts have also determined the different forms of legal responses, in different countries, to address the challenges of statelessness.31 These encompass: (a) the determination of statelessness and protection status (including facilitation of access to naturalisation, as required under Article 32 of the 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons — for stateless persons in the migratory context; and (b) recognition of nationality — for the stateless in situ persons.32 Similar contemporary thoughts on statelessness characterised three significant milestones — the post-Second World War (1939–1945) drafting of the UDHR; the inception of the twenty-first century (protests in the Global North); and the recent UNHCR #IBelong campaign (2014), which coincides with the pioneer Global Forum on Statelessness.33 The UNHCR’s #IBelong campaign enhances states’ and other stakeholders’ commitment to the Global Action Plan to end statelessness by 2024.34 The above milestones significantly put statelessness on the front burner of multilateral discourses, human rights policies, awareness, and development agendas. With enhanced identification of aliens, birth registration, naturalisation, and permanent residency worldwide (particularly in the Global North), the campaign’s influence is not uniform, as commitments and outcomes vary across countries and regions.35 Nonetheless, Thailand’s development of nationality laws, and evaluation of historical situations of stateless persons, aliens, and minorities, are noteworthy across the Global South. Since 2005, the Thai government’s efforts in reducing statelessness include measures on education, quality of life and integration of stateless and vulnerable persons, amid collaborations with civil societies and international organisations.36 The intricacy of a parastate caught between statehood and frozen conflict elicits yet another development concern for statelessness. The entrapment of the Azawad — a remote parastate situated in northern Mali — in a protracted conflict involving non-state armed groups, national security forces, and external interveners, is a critical example.37 The above reality illustrates a temporary and volatile circumstance linking parastate, patronage politics, hybrid governance and statelessness, amid deprivation and marginalisation. The typical nature of the Sahara Desert’s spatial porosity highlights how ethnic and religious drivers intertwine and overlap with the Gábor Gyulai 'Statelessness in the EU framework for international protection' European Journal of Migration and Law (2012) 279. 32 C Vlieks op cit note 30. 33 Tendayi Bloom Katherine Tonkiss & Phillip Cole Understanding Statelessness (2017). 34 UNDG op cit note 6. 35 ACHPR op cit note 12; Bronwen Manby 'The Sustainable Development Goals and "Legal identity for all": "First, do no harm"' (2021) 14 World Development at 279 ; UNHCR op cit note 11; Punthip K Saisoonthorn 'Development of concepts on nationality and the efforts to reduce statelessness in Thailand' (2006) 25 Refugee Survey Quarterly (Nationality and Reduction of Statelessness: International, Regional and National Perspectives) at 40; Christoph Sperfeldt 'Legal identity in the sustainable development agenda: Actors, perspectives and trends in an emerging field of research' (2022) 26 IJHR at 217, available at https://doi.org/10.1080/13642987.2021.1913409 36 Saisoonthorn ibid. 37 Edoardo Baldaro & Luca Raineri 'Azawad: A parastate between nomads and mujahidins?' (2020) 48 Nationalities Papers 48 at 100. 31 63