446 Melbourne University Law Review [Vol 40:401 rights and the potential for naturalisation to stateless persons in accordance with international law. There are several reasons why a legislative procedure is necessary to implement these obligations. First, the introduction of a specific procedure would ensure fairness, transparency and clarity with respect to statelessness determinations.239 It is well understood that to be effective, international obligations must be enshrined in law, not left to discretionary or noncompellable processes.240 At present, as discussed above, there is a lack of clarity in both guidelines and case law regarding the core questions pertinent to the assessment of whether a person is stateless. The introduction of a specific protection regime for stateless persons would focus attention on the definition in art 1 of the 1954 Convention, and encourage Australian decisionmakers both to draw on, and contribute to, a nascent but developing body of international jurisprudence on its interpretation.241 Second, as observed by the UNHCR, ‘the identification of statelessness can help prevent statelessness by revealing the root causes and new trends in statelessness.’242 Third, the introduction of a determination procedure would assist the Australian government to ‘assess the size and profile’ of stateless persons in Australia and thus the government services required to support them.243 Fourth, there is a pragmatic incentive: by identifying stateless persons at an early stage, costs could be saved on unnecessary detention244 (in terms of both the cost of detention itself, and that of the psychological counselling that is frequently necessary for people who have been in prolonged detention).245 This would 239 UNHCR, Handbook on Protection of Stateless Persons, above n 20, 28 [71]; UNHCR, Geneva Conclusions, above n 136, 2 [1]. 240 See, eg, McAdam, ‘From Humanitarian Discretion to Complementary Protection’, above n 222. 241 As Laura van Waas observes, the lack of widespread implementation of statelessness status determination procedures means that the ‘stateless person’ definition has not undergone the degree of ‘progressive interpretation through doctrinal guidance and jurisprudence’ as the refugee definition, although this ‘is slowly changing’: van Waas, ‘The UN Statelessness Conventions’, above n 22, 80. 242 UNHCR, Handbook on Protection of Stateless Persons, above n 20, 6 [10]. 243 Ibid. 244 See Gyulai, ‘ENS Guidelines’, above n 136, 6. 245 See, eg, Zachary Steel et al, ‘Impact of Immigration Detention and Temporary Protection on the Mental Health of Refugees’ (2006) 188 British Journal of Psychiatry 58; Derrick Silove, Patricia Austin and Zachary Steel, ‘No Refuge from Terror: The Impact of Detention on the Mental Health of Trauma-Affected Refugees Seeking Asylum in Australia’ (2007) 44 Transcultural Psychiatry 359; Louise Newman, Nicholas Proctor and Michael Dudley, ‘Seeking