2019 Statelessness & Citizenship Review 1(1) statelessness, not only refugees. 73 UNHCR began to intensify efforts toward this end as of 2008 and to triple funding allocated to the issue between 2009 and 2013, from 12 to 36 million. 74 In October 2013, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, António Guterres, who is now serving as the UN Secretary-General, called for the ‘total commitment of the international community to end statelessness’. 75 To operationalise this commitment, UNHCR consulted with states, civil society and international organisations to develop the Global Action Plan to End Statelessness: 2014–2024 (‘Global Action Plan’). 76 With the endorsement of high-profile supporters, such as actress and special envoy Angelina Jolie and the collaboration of fashion company United Colors of Benetton, in November 2014 UNHCR launched the #IBELONG Campaign. 77 The stated intent of UNHCR’s Global Action Plan is to ‘bring an end to statelessness within 10 years by resolving existing situations and preventing the emergence of new cases of statelessness’. 78 UNHCR’s working strategies include collaborating with governments, civil society, other UN agencies and stakeholders to develop national action plans; providing technical advice and resources; promoting exchange of good practices; engaging the justice sector for strategic litigation; raising global awareness; and advocating for an end to statelessness. 79 To bring such a disparate group of actors to the table, international organisations, such as the UNHCR, must construct a federating discourse to build consensus. 80 This entails discursively separating the issue at hand — statelessness — from the messy realm of politics, effectively depoliticising it. This is why UNHCR frames the issue of statelessness in technical and legal terms, obviating the politics underlying states’ (un)willingness to recognise or confer nationality. Taking the international system of states as a given, it sees statelessness as a ‘glaring anomaly’ and declares that with political will and lowcost reforms, states can resolve even large-scale situations. 81 Emphasis is placed on adherence to international law and implementation of technical solutions, such as identification and birth registration. 82 The stateless are cast as blameless, innocent and the problem entirely solvable, as the #IBELONG Campaign website suggests: ‘the irony is that these people find themselves stateless through no fault of their own — and in most cases their condition could be resolved through minor changes in existing laws’. 83 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 GA Res 61/137, UN Doc A/RES/61/137 (19 December 2006). United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, ‘Financials: Budget — 2013’ (2014) <http://reporting.unhcr.org/financial>. Antonio Guterres, ‘High Commissioner’s Closing Remarks to the 64th Session of UNHCR’s Executive Committee’ (Speech, Palais des Nations, Geneva, 4 October 2013). Global Action Plan (n 69). Divers, ‘UNHCR Launches 10-Year Global Campaign to End Statelessness’ (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 4 November 2014) <https://www.unhcr.org/afr/news/latest/2014/11/545797f06/unhcr-launches-10-year-globalcampaign-end-statelessness.html>. Global Action Plan (n 69) 4. ibid 5. Antoine Pécoud, Depoliticising Migration (Palgrave Macmillan 2014). ibid 7. Kelly Staples, ‘Recognition, Nationality, and Statelessness: State-Based Challenges for UNHCR’s Plan to End Statelessness’ in Tendayi Bloom, Katherine Tonkiss and Phillip Cole (eds), Understanding Statelessness (Routledge 2017) 178. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, ‘What Does it Mean to Be Stateless?’ <https://www.unhcr.org/ibelong/what-does-it-mean-to-be-stateless/>. 146