2016] The Protection of Stateless Persons in Australian Law 451 respect to conferral of nationality.269 As noted above, requests for information from a third state should only occur after it has been determined that a person is not at risk of persecution or other serious harm.270 Given the practical difficulties of an applicant being able to prove that he or she is stateless, and in light of the protection-oriented objective of the procedure (notably, the risk if a claim is incorrectly rejected), the UNHCR recommends that ‘a finding of statelessness would be warranted where it is established to a “reasonable degree” that an individual is not considered as a national by any State under the operation of its law.’271 Since it would be virtually impossible for an applicant to demonstrate that none of the world’s 200 states considers him or her to be a national, it would only be necessary to consider states with which he or she has a relevant link (for example, birth, descent, marriage or habitual residence).272 As Batchelor notes, ‘[p]roving statelessness is like establishing a negative. The individual must demonstrate something that is not there.’273 The authors concur with McAdam’s contention that: where an individual can show, on the basis of all reasonably available evidence, that he or she is not a national of a particular country, then the burden should shift to Australia to prove that the individual is a national of a particular country.274 Relevant evidence in this context includes evidence relating to the applicant’s personal circumstances, and evidence concerning the laws and other circumstances in the country in question.275 269 UNHCR, Geneva Conclusions, above n 136, 5 [16]. 270 Ibid 5 [14], 6–7 [26]–[30]. For details of good practices in the Philippines, Georgia and the United Kingdom see Gyulai, ‘ENS Guidelines’, above n 136, 11–12. 271 UNHCR, Handbook on Protection of Stateless Persons, above n 20, 35 [91]. See, eg, the approach adopted by the Philippines and Hungary, outlined in Gyulai, ‘ENS Guidelines’, above n 136, 28. 272 UNHCR, Handbook on Protection of Stateless Persons, above n 20, 35 [92]. See, eg, the good practices of Hungary, Slovakia and the Philippines, referred to in Gyulai, ‘ENS Guidelines’, above n 136, 29. 273 Batchelor, ‘The 1954 Convention’, above n 23, 36 (emphasis in original). 274 McAdam, ‘Position Paper’, above n 238, 6 [27] (emphasis added). See also UNHCR, Geneva Conclusions, above n 136, 4 [13]. 275 UNHCR, Handbook on Protection of Stateless Persons, above n 20, 32–3 [83]–[86]; Gyulai, ‘ENS Guidelines’, above n 136, 28. As Gyulai notes, Hungarian law specifies the following types of evidence: country information on nationality legislation; information provided by the UNHCR; information provided by foreign authorities; information provided by Hungarian diplomatic representations abroad; and evidence submitted by the applicant: at 29, citing