2019 Statelessness & Citizenship Review 1(1) The Global Compact on Refugees was proposed by UNHCR, building on the Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework already laid out in Annex I of the New York Declaration. 133 Some consultations took place in 2017–18, mostly with state and non-state actors already collaborating with UNHCR in the implementation of the ‘Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework’ in pilot countries during this two-year period: national and local authorities, international organisations, international financial institutions, regional organisations, regional coordination and partnership mechanisms, civil society partners, including faithbased organisations and academia, the private sector, media and the refugees themselves. 134 The final draft of the Global Compact on Refugees was also adopted in December 2018. 135 Statelessness is mentioned in arts 60, 82 and 83 of the Global Compact on Refugees, 136 with its usual emphasis on identification, birth registration and documentation. Importantly, art 82 distinguishes between birth registration and the conferral of a nationality: ‘while it does not necessarily lead to conferral of nationality, birth registration helps establish legal identity and prevent the risk of statelessness’. 137 This emphasis suggests the Global Compact for Refugees is likely to reaffirm UNHCR’s existing technical approach to statelessness prevention and reduction, though the call for establishing a global academic network on refugee and statelessness issues (art 43) represents an important move toward ongoing dialogue on these issues. CONCLUDING REMARKS: SEEING THE STATE IN STATELESSNESS AND NEW WAYS OF SEEING This paper has endeavoured to contrast the slippery statecraft involved in governments’ strategic use of citizenship to govern human mobility, with global governance actors’ tendency to turn statelessness into a non-political problem in need of technical solutions. Since 2013, statelessness has been rediscovered as an egregious violation of human rights and pressing challenge to global governance. Yet the framing of the issue by UNHCR and other global governance actors continues to assume that statelessness can be resolved — provided there is political will — within the existing international system of states and human rights framework through relatively simple reforms. Contrasting the messy politics involved in creating contemporary situations of statelessness, as opposed to its narrow technical and legalistic framing, reveals a tendency toward depoliticisation of what is a fundamentally political problem. Comparing the broader structural causes of statelessness with UNHCR’s Global Action Plan raises important concerns regarding the ethics and efficacy of their campaign to end statelessness. The post-9/11 securitisation of citizenship poses ethical questions regarding the potentially discriminatory effects of biometric technologies. UNHCR’s emphasis on birth registration and identity documentation, which are often produced using these new technologies, has been criticised as problematic and potentially exacerbating state-sponsored 133 New York Declaration (n 116) Annex I. 134 United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, ‘Formal Consultations’ <https://www.unhcr.org/formal-consultations-on-the-global-compact-on-refugees.html>. 135 The Global Compact on Refugees (n 117). 136 ibid [60], [82], [83]. 137 ibid. 152