2016] The Prevention and Reduction of Statelessness in Australia 459 I I B AC KG R O U N D A N D C O N T E X T : W HAT I S S TAT E L E S S N E S S A N D W H Y D O E S I T M AT T E R ? In a companion article published in the same issue, we outlined what statelessness is and why it matters.7 To summarise briefly, art 1(1) of the 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons (‘1954 Convention’) provides that a stateless person is someone ‘who is not considered as a national by any State under the operation of its law.’8 Typically, stateless persons live in a ‘legal limbo’9 characterised by vulnerability, insecurity and marginalisation.10 They commonly face difficulties accessing basic human rights, such as education, employment, housing and healthcare,11 and are at a heightened risk of exploitation, arrest and arbitrary detention because they cannot prove who they are or that they have links to any country.12 There are millions of stateless persons in the world, but the majority reside in the Asia-Pacific region.13 Statelessness may arise from a wide range of circumstances, including discriminatory or conflicting nationality laws,14 arbitrary deprivation of 7 Ibid. This Part draws closely on that article. 8 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, opened for signature 28 September 1954, 360 UNTS 117 (entered into force 6 June 1960) art(1). 9 Harry J Kits, ‘Betwixt and between: Refugees and Stateless Persons in Limbo’ (2005) 22(2) Refuge 3, 5. 10 UNHCR, Handbook on Protection of Stateless Persons under the 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons (2014) 1. Although it is acknowledged that the situation can vary widely: in South East Asia the situation is quite different as between Thailand, Brunei and Singapore on the one hand and Myanmar on the other. We are grateful to Nick Oakeshott for this insight. 11 See, eg, Marilyn Achiron and Radha Govil, Nationality and Statelessness: Handbook for Parliamentarians No 22 (Inter-Parliamentary Union/UNHCR, 2nd ed, 2014) 3, 3; Kristy A Belton, ‘Statelessness: A Matter of Human Rights’ in Rhoda E Howard-Hassmann and Margaret Walton-Roberts (eds), The Human Right to Citizenship: A Slippery Concept (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015) 31, 36--40; Sophie Nonnenmacher and Ryszard Cholewinski, ‘The Nexus between Statelessness and Migration’ in Alice Edwards and Laura van Waas (eds), Nationality and Statelessness under International Law (Cambridge University Press, 2014) 247, 249--50. 12 Nonnenmacher and Cholewinski, above n 11, 254--5, 261; Batchelor, ‘Statelessness and the Problem of Resolving Nationality Status’, above n 1, 159. 13 ‘Annex’ (2014) 14 UNHCR Statistical Yearbook 79, 83. 14 See, eg, UNHCR, ‘Gender Equality, Nationality Laws and Statelessness 2014’ (Background Note, UNHCR, 7 March 2014) <http://www.unhcr.org/4f5886306.html>. On denationalisation in the United Kingdom see Matthew J Gibney, ‘The Deprivation of Citizenship in the United Kingdom: A Brief History’ (2014) 28 Journal of Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Law 326.