458 Melbourne University Law Review [Vol 40:456 statelessness to relative obscurity.3 Over the past decade, however, there has been renewed interest in and commitment to resolving the endemic problem of statelessness, most clearly exemplified by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ (‘UNHCR’) Global Action Plan to End Statelessness 2014--24, which sets out to end statelessness by 2024.4 Central to the plan is the prevention and reduction of statelessness, which relies in part on encouraging more states to ratify and implement the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness (‘1961 Convention’).5 This article provides the first comprehensive analysis of the extent to which Australia complies with its obligations under the 1961 Convention and other relevant international instruments to prevent and reduce statelessness. Although Australia does not have a large stateless population,6 there are nevertheless particular cohorts of people who do not have a nationality, may be at risk of losing their nationality, or may face difficulties acquiring Australian citizenship. In Part II, we briefly set out the background and context to statelessness, before examining the relevant international legal framework and Australia’s obligations in Part III. In Part IV, we outline the way in which statelessness and citizenship are regulated in Australian law, explaining that a lack of constitutional safeguards means that it is entirely regulated by statute, thus placing a large amount of discretion in the Parliament with limited scope for the judiciary to intervene. In Part V, we turn to the core of the analysis, namely the extent to which Australian law protects against statelessness in relation to the acquisition and deprivation of citizenship, focusing in particular on amendments made in 2015 to the Australian Citizenship Act 2007 (Cth) (‘Citizenship Act’). 3 Alice Edwards and Laura van Waas, ‘Statelessness’ in Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh et al (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Refugee and Forced Migration Studies (Oxford University Press, 2014) 290, 290. 4 United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Global Action Plan to End Statelessness 2014--24 (2014). 5 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, opened for signature 30 August 1961, 989 UNTS 175 (entered into force 13 December 1975). See also ibid 23. 6 Michelle Foster, Jane McAdam and Davina Wadley, ‘Part One: The Protection of Stateless Persons in Australian Law ---- The Rationale for a Statelessness Determination Procedure’ (2016) 40 Melbourne University Law Review 401, which discusses the limited data available on the size and profile of Australia’s stateless population.