DPCE online, 2020/4 – Saggi ISSN: 2037-6677 Governing through uncertainty? Migration Law and governance in a comparative perspective related policies are coherent across the EU. Relying on data, available through the instrument created by the European Network on Statelessness (INS), namely Statelessness Index (hereinafter SI) as of mid-2020, the paper compares the main instruments related to addressing statelessness (and their implementation) in four countries. Within the forced migration context, the main thematic areas selected from UNHCR’s Global Action Plan relate to the prevention of new cases of statelessness and the identification and protection of stateless population. Diversity of legislation (or gaps in legislation) complicates the comparison of countries, thus countries with a similar (lack of) statelessness determination procedures would point out to the main challengers better than the ones with different legislation and practices. Germany, Hungary, Italy and Poland were also chosen because of their significance as transit or destination countries notably after the beginning of the Syrian Civil War which caused mass displacement through i.a. the Eastern Mediterranean route from 2011 onwards. Prior to the outbreak of the conflict, Syria (being also one of the 25 countries with genderbased discriminatory provisions in its nationality laws) had more than 800,000 stateless individuals residing at its territory composed mainly of Kurds from the Hassaka Governorate and stateless Palestinian refugees36. During the Ministerial Intergovernmental Event on Refugees and Stateless Persons in 2011, Hungary was the most ‘generous’ in pledges concerning (legislative) steps to address statelessness (UNHCR, 2012, p.81), while the pledges of Germany did not concern the issue of statelessness per se37, and Italy and Poland did not make any pledge on the occasion of the UNHCR ministerial meeting in question. The European Union stated its commitment ‘to support UNHCR efforts and to prevent and end statelessness in compliance with the principles of the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness’38. Nearly a decade later, the four EU Member States exposed differences in their approach to the issue of statelessness. a. International and regional instruments. As of mid-2020 and considering the 1954 and 1961 Conventions as a starting point, Germany, Italy and Hungary were parties to both of them, while Poland was not a State Party to either. As to the regional instruments, the only relevant document in question which was signed, but not ratified by Poland, was the ECN. According to the SI, Germany retained two reservations to 1954 Convention Institute of Statelessness and Inclusion, European Network on Statelessness, SteunpuntVluchtelingen (ASKV), From Syria to Europe: Experiences of Stateless Kurds and Palestinian Refugees from Syria Seeking Protection in Europe, 2019, 8, available at www.institutesi.org/resources/from-syria-to-europe-experiences-of-stateless-kurds/, accessed on 7-7-2020. 37 UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Ministerial Intergovernmental Event on Refugees and Stateless Persons - Pledges 2011, October 2012, 85, available at: www.refworld.org/docid/50aca6112.html, accessed on 7-7-2020. 38 Ibidem, 70. 36 5266