2016] The Protection of Stateless Persons in Australian Law 413 measures.65 Nevertheless, there are several important differences, including a lower standard of protection for stateless persons in relation to some rights,66 and an absence of others, most notably the principle of non-refoulement.67 In addition to the two specialist statelessness treaties, Australia is a party to key human rights instruments that impose obligations relevant to the prevention and reduction of statelessness, and the protection of stateless persons.68 As well as these binding treaty obligations, there are a number of other relevant developments that provide important context to assessing Australia’s protection of stateless persons. As a member of the UNHCR’s Executive 65 See UNHCR, Handbook on Protection of Stateless Persons, above n 20, 46 [129]; 1954 Convention arts 12–32; Batchelor, ‘The 1954 Convention’, above n 23, 45–51. 66 There is a lower standard of treatment than the Refugee Convention with respect to freedom of association and the right to work (1954 Convention arts 15, 17), no equivalent guarantee against penalisation for illegal entry (cf Refugee Convention art 31) and a different scope of protection with respect to expulsion. See also Goodwin-Gill, Introductory Note: Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, above n 2; UNHCR, Handbook on Protection of Stateless Persons, above n 20, 46 [127]. For a detailed analysis of the provisions of the treaty see van Waas, Nationality Matters, above n 39. 67 This was because, as the drafting history reveals, the drafters thought that art 33 of the Refugee Convention was ‘an expression of the generally accepted principle’. In the Final Act of the United Nations Conference on the Status of Stateless Persons, 360 UNTS 117 (28 September 1954) 118, 122, 124, the drafters provided: Being of the opinion that Article 33 of the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees of 1951 is an expression of the generally accepted principle that no State should expel or return a person in any manner whatsoever to the frontiers of territories where his life or freedom would be threatened on account of his race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, [have] not found it necessary to include in the Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons an article equivalent to Article 33 of the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees of 1951. 68 See Universal Declaration of Human Rights, GA Res 217A (III), UN GAOR, 3rd sess, 183rd plen mtg, UN Doc A/810 (10 December 1948) art 15; ICCPR art 24(3); International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, opened for signature 7 March 1966, 660 UNTS 195 (entered into force 4 January 1969) art 5(d)(iii); Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, opened for signature 18 December 1979, 1249 UNTS 13 (entered into force 3 September 1981) art 9; Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, opened for signature 30 March 2007, 2515 UNTS 3 (entered into force 3 May 2008) art 18; Convention on the Rights of the Child, opened for signature 20 November 1989, 1577 UNTS 3 (entered into force 2 September 1990) art 7. See also the ‘Conclusion on Identification, Prevention and Reduction of Statelessness and Protection of Stateless Persons’: Executive Committee of the High Commissioner’s Programme, Report of the Fifty-Seventh Session of the Executive Committee of the High Commissioner’s Programme, UN GAOR, 57th sess, Agenda Item 14, UN Doc A/AC.96/1035 (10 October 2016) 13–17 [18] (‘Report of the Fifty-Seventh Session’); van Waas, Nationality Matters, above n 39, 395–8.