Identifying the Stateless in the United Kingdom • 441 1. I N T RO D U CT I O N 1 2 3 4 5 6 Gerard-René de Groot, Katja Swider, and Oliver Vonk, ‘Practices and Approaches in EU Member States to Prevent and End Statelessness’ (PE 536.476, European Union 2015) 14. Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons (adopted 28 September 1954, entered into force 6 June 1960) 360 UNTS 117 (1954 Convention). See Laura van Waas, Nationality Matters: Statelessness under International Law (Intersentia 2008); Katia Bianchini, ‘The “Stateless Person” Definition in Selected EU Member States: Variations of Interpretation and Application’ (2017) 36(3) Refugee Survey Quarterly 81; Paul Weis, Nationality and Statelessness in International Law (Brill Nijhoff 1979). Bianchini (n 2) 81; Katia Bianchini, ‘A Comparative Analysis of Statelessness Determination Procedures in 10 EU States’ (2017) 29 International Journal of Refugee Law 42. UNHCR, Handbook on Protection of Stateless Persons under the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons (2014) (Handbook). The Handbook, for instance, recommends sharing the burden of proof between the applicant and the decision maker (para 89); the standard of proof shall be that of establishing the case to a ‘reasonable degree’ (para 91); a decision shall be taken within a reasonable time, normally six months (para 75); access to legal counsel shall be ensured and legal aid shall be offered to applicants, if available (para 28); a right of appeal to an independent body shall be provided (para 76). The countries are the United Kingdom (UK), Spain, and Hungary. In other Member States, formal determinations of statelessness are either impossible or take place on the basis of scattered legal provisions. Katia Bianchini, Protecting Stateless Persons: The Implementation of the Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons across EU States (Brill Nijhoff 2018); Katja Swider and Maarten den Heijer, ‘Why Union Law Can and Should Protect Stateless Persons’ (2017) 19 European Journal of Migration and Law 101. Bianchini (n 2) 81; Bianchini (n 3) 42; Swider and den Heijer (n 5) 101; Gábor Gyulai, ‘Statelessness in Hungary: The Protection of Stateless Persons and the Prevention and Reduction of Statelessness’ (Hungarian Helsinki Committee 2010); Gábor Gyulai, ‘Statelessness in the EU Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ijrl/article/32/3/440/6065591 by guest on 04 July 2025 Statelessness, or the lack of a nationality, prevents affected people from enjoying diplomatic protection and the right to enter, leave, or stay in any country. It also often excludes them from accessing a number of other rights, such as access to courts, documentation, employment, benefits, and other civil and social rights. Stateless persons also find themselves at great risk of prolonged and arbitrary immigration detention with limited or no recourse to a legal remedy.1 To address the problem of the lack of legal protection for stateless persons, States adopted the 1954 Convention on the Status of Stateless Persons (1954 Convention), considered the most important legal instrument regulating the obligation to guarantee a set of basic rights to stateless persons.2 This treaty, however, is silent on whether and what kind of procedures should be adopted to recognize a person as stateless. In light of the implementation problems that this creates at the national level,3 the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which is the UN agency mandated to protect stateless persons, has provided guidance in its Handbook on the Protection of Stateless Persons regarding the adoption of specific stateless determination procedures (SDPs) and their essential elements.4 Three European Union (EU) countries now have SDPs in place and, compared to 10 years ago, some progress is evident.5 Nevertheless, the effectiveness of national systems in ensuring protection for stateless persons is being debated as a number of legal, practical, and political challenges remain.6 Some