106 Swider and den Heijer risk of permanent marginalization. This contrasts sharply with the existence of asylum determination procedures and protected statuses in all EU Member States which give effect to the 1951 Refugee Convention and which are consolidated in the common EU asylum policy. There are obviously severe strains on that policy at this moment, but those are caused by factors which are unlikely to surface in the context of statelessness. The challenges of burden sharing and sudden influx are not central to the statelessness issue and do not affect our proposal. 2 International Standards on Statelessness International legal norms on statelessness can be roughly divided into two categories: the ‘avoidance norms’ and the ‘protection norms’. The major UN treaty that enshrines the ‘avoidance norms’ is the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness (hereafter 1961 Convention), which has 63 State Parties, of which 19 are EU Member States.12 This Convention establishes standards on the acquisition and loss of nationality, with the aim of preventing statelessness from occurring. Other international and regional treaties also contain avoidance norms, such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women and the European Convention on Nationality.13 International norms on the avoidance of statelessness are highly instrumental in ensuring that more people have access to a nationality of a State with which they have a relevant link. However, they stop short of guaranteeing that every person has a nationality, even if they would be subscribed to and implemented universally. They allow for exceptions through which states can acquiesce in statelessness arising at birth or from withdrawal of nationality.14 As a matter of reality therefore, and notwithstanding the laudable campaign launched by UNHCR in 2014 to eradicate statelessness by 2024,15 it is to be accepted that statelessness will continue to occur. It follows that stateless 12 As of July 2016. 13 Art. 7(2) of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child of 1989; Art. 9(1) CEDAW; Art. 6(2b) of the European Convention on Nationality. Also see Art. 18 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities of 2006 and Art. 5(d)(iii) of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination of 1965. 14 See e.g. Arts 1(2)(b), 7(4) and 8(2–4) of the 1961 Convention. 15  U NHCR, ‘Global Action Plan to End Statelessness, 2014–2024’, November 2014. European Journal of Migration and Law 19 (2017) 101–135