PART ONE:
THE PROTECTION OF STATELESS
PERSONS IN AUSTRALIAN L AW —
THE RATIONALE FOR A STATELESSNESS
DETERMINATION PRO CEDURE
M I C H E L L E F O S T E R , * J A N E M C A DA M † A N D
D AV I NA W A D L E Y ‡
Over the past decade, there has been renewed global interest in statelessness. With the
50th anniversary of the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness in 2011
(coinciding with the 60th anniversary of the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of
Refugees), the UNHCR organised a Ministerial Intergovernmental Event on Refugees
and Stateless Persons which stimulated unprecedented commitments by states to adopt
and implement actions to address statelessness. There were further important developments in 2014. That year marked the 60th anniversary of the 1954 Convention Relating
to the Status of Stateless Persons, the launch of the UNHCR’s 10-year campaign to
eradicate statelessness, and the first Global Forum on Statelessness, co-hosted by the
UNHCR and Tilburg University. However, to date there has been virtually no legal or
academic analysis of statelessness in Australia, and little in the way of government
*
LLB, BCom (Hons) (UNSW), LLM, SJD (Mich); Professor and Director, International
Refugee Law Research Programme, Institute for International Law and the Humanities,
Melbourne Law School, The University of Melbourne. We are very grateful to the Melbourne
Law School Law Research Service, especially Amy Frew, Andrew Butler and Robin Gardner,
for undertaking excellent initial research, and to Minh-Quan Nguyen for excellent editorial
assistance. We also acknowledge the work of Adrienne Anderson, Research Associate, Andrew & Renata Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, Faculty of Law, UNSW Sydney,
who provided high quality, accurate and efficient research assistance. We are also grateful for
insightful feedback from Radha Govil, Legal Officer, Statelessness Section, UNHCR, Geneva,
on an earlier draft, and to participants at the Workshop on Researching Statelessness and
Citizenship, Melbourne Law School, January 2016, co-hosted by The University of Melbourne (Melbourne School of Government and Melbourne Law School) and the UNHCR, at
which some of the ideas in this article were presented. We thank the three anonymous reviewers who provided very helpful feedback. Any errors or omissions remain, of course,
our own.
†
BA (Hons), LLB (Hons) (Syd), DPhil (Oxf); Scientia Professor and Director, Andrew &
Renata Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, Faculty of Law, UNSW Sydney.
‡
LLB (UQ); Independent Consultant on Statelessness and Migration; Solicitor of the Supreme
Court of Queensland; Registered Migration Agent.
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