414 Melbourne University Law Review [Vol 40:401 Committee, Australia participated by consensus in the formulation of the ‘Conclusion on Identification, Prevention and Reduction of Statelessness and Protection of Stateless Persons’ in 2006.69 Among other things, this: Calls on States not to detain stateless persons on the sole basis of their being stateless and to treat them in accordance with international human rights law and also calls on States Parties to the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons to fully implement its provisions …70 In 2011, on the 50th anniversary of the 1961 Convention and the 60th anniversary of the Refugee Convention, the UNHCR convened a Ministerial Intergovernmental Event to mark these anniversaries and to invite states to make concrete commitments to improve protection and assistance to refugees and stateless persons. Whereas the two statelessness Conventions had long been under-subscribed and the phenomenon of statelessness had been ‘largely absent from the global human rights agenda,’71 the event increased momentum on this issue. Thirty-three states pledged to accede to one or both statelessness treaties, and more than 40 states undertook to implement other measures to reduce statelessness, such as by reforming domestic nationality laws.72 Although these pledges were not legally binding, they provide an important benchmark for evaluating whether the protection of stateless persons globally has improved in the past five years, including prevention, reduction and identification of statelessness.73 It was in this context that Australia pledged: to better identify stateless persons and assess their claims. Australia is committed to minimising the incidence of statelessness and to ensuring that stateless persons are treated no less favourably than people with an identified nationali- 69 Report of the Fifty-Seventh Session, UN Doc A/AC.96/1035, 13–17 [18]. 70 Ibid 17 [18] para (w). 71 Tamás Molnár, ‘Remembering The Forgotten: International Legal Regime Protecting the Stateless Persons — Stocktaking and New Tendencies’ (2014) 11 US-China Law Review 822, 825. 72 UNHCR, Pledges 2011, above n 14, 12, 32–3. 73 Australia’s inaction is also in stark contrast to the efforts by other states. Twenty-two of the states in attendance at the 2011 Ministerial meeting have fulfilled their pledges and 10 states have taken other actions towards addressing statelessness, even though such actions were not contained in any pledge: see UNHCR, State Action on Statelessness <http://web.archive.org/web/20150905202236/http://www.unhcr.org/pages/4ff2bdff6.html>.