Background Causes and consequences of statelessness A stateless person is someone who is not considered to be a national by any State under the operation of its law.5 Millions of people worldwide6 continue to suffer the privations and indignity of being denied nationality. Statelessness may occur for a variety of reasons, including discrimination against particular ethnic or religious groups or on the basis of gender; the emergence of new States, transfers and changes of territory between existing States (State succession); and gaps and conflicts in nationality laws. Lack of birth registration can lead to risks of statelessness. Whatever the cause, statelessness has serious consequences for people in almost every country and in all regions of the world. Stateless persons are often denied enjoyment of a range of rights such as access to identity documents, employment, education and health services. Statelessness can lead to forced displacement just as forced displacement can lead to statelessness. It can also contribute to political and social tensions. The exclusion and denial of rights to large populations because they are stateless can impair the economic and social development of States. International and regional legal framework on statelessness Under international law, States set the rules for acquiring, changing and withdrawing nationality. At the same time, the discretion of States regarding nationality is limited by obligations under international treaties to which they are a party, customary international law and general principles of international law. The 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons is the cornerstone of the international protection regime for stateless personse.7 Specific obligations relating to the prevention and reduction of statelessness are established under the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness.8 In addition, a range of human rights instruments recognize the right to a nationality, albeit with varying formulations. These instruments include: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; the International Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination; the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women; the Convention on the Rights of the Child; the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families; and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Regional human rights instruments also address the issue of statelessness, reinforcing 5 Article 1, 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, UN General Assembly, Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, United Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 360, p. 117, 28 September 1954, https://www.refworld.org/legal/agreements/unga/1954/en/32744 6 At the end of 2023, UNHCR’s statistical reporting counted 4.4 million stateless people. This figure includes both people who were stateless or of undetermined nationality. The 4.4 million is based on data covering 95 countries which was reported to UNHCR by governments or collected from other sources such as quantitative and qualitative studies by UNHCR and its partners. The number of countries providing statistics on stateless populations to UNHCR has increased slightly during the last decade. Approximately half of all countries do not report any data on statelessness, including many countries with known large stateless populations. Additionally, some countries only report statistics for parts of the known stateless population in the country. The true global stateless population is therefore expected to be considerably larger. The global stateless population figure is updated annually and published in the UNHCR Global Trends report, which is released every year on Global Refugee Day in June. 7 UN General Assembly, Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, United Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 360, p. 117, 28 September 1954, https://www.refworld.org/legal/agreements/unga/1954/en/32744. For the updated list of State parties, please see here: https://treaties. un.org/Pages/ViewDetailsII.aspx?src=TREATY&mtdsg_no=V-3&chapter=5&Temp=mtdsg2&clang=_en 8 UN General Assembly, Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, United Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 989, p. 175, 30 August 1961, https://www.refworld.org/legal/agreements/unga/1961/en/20424. For the updated list of State parties, please see here: https://treaties.un.org/Pages/ViewDetails.aspx?src=TREATY&mtdsg_no=V-4&chapter=5&clang=_en 8 GLOBAL ACTION PLAN TO END STATELESSNESS 2.0