Clara Van Thillo The weaknesses of the Statelessness Conventions lie precisely in the limited understanding of statelessness at the time.128 The 1961 Convention provides clear rules for how conflicts of laws resulting in statelessness should be remedied, but fails to adequately address other causes. For example, it prohibits nationality deprivation on discriminatory grounds, but fails to include important grounds, including gender and disability.129 The provision also solely deals with denationalisation, but does not acknowledge the role that discrimination plays in the denial of nationality. While the 1954 Convention seems to propose a rights-based approach at first glance, it only provides for a minimum standard of treatment for stateless persons. Various provisions oblige States to grant stateless persons particular rights – for instance, the right to religion – that are as favourable as the rights of nationals,130 but for many other rights, such as the right to housing, the 1954 Convention provides that States should grant rights that are not less favourable than those accorded to aliens generally in the same circumstances, thereby allowing a distinction to be made between nationals and aliens.131 Even more, many provisions allow States to limit those rights when the stateless person is unlawfully residing in the State’s territory.132 This approach is at odds with the premise of human rights law that individuals are entitled to human rights on the basis of their humanity, not their nationality or residency status. The human rights-based approach, on the other hand, presents a number of clear advantages. Although accessions to the Statelessness Conventions have risen significantly over the past twenty years,133 they do not enjoy such a wide acceptance as many international human rights treaties. Having 196 parties, the CRC is the most widely ratified convention globally, and CEDAW and ICERD count 189 and 182 parties respectively.134 The provisions of these instruments have been further fleshed out by treaty monitoring bodies, a practice that allows for greater flexibility and leaves room for further interpretation and development of standards in light of new findings. This flexibility can also be observed in the UPR process. Human rights law allows to overcome the gaps in the Statelessness Conventions, and to weave a more comprehensive framework. Since statelessness is a multi-facetted issue, of which the patterns, causes, and consequences can take many forms, it can only be solved by an holistic approach to it, which human rights law offers. Both the traditional approach and the human rights-based approach agree on one particular point: statelessness is undesirable. This paper started out with the question why the human rights-based approach is considered as ‘fairer’ by scholars and practitioners. It can be argued that the ‘fairness’ of both approaches must be assessed in light of the aim of eliminating statelessness, which both approaches consider as the desirable and fair outcome. Linked to that perception of fairness, is the inclusion of all individuals in the solutions to statelessness, as elimination of statelessness in its entirety necessarily entails that no individual is left stateless. The regulation of nationality has always been perceived as a difficult balancing exercise between the State’s interests on the one hand, and the interests of the individual on 128 For a detailed evaluation of the Statelessness Conventions, see van Waas (n 69). 1961 Convention, art. 9. 130 1954 Convention, arts. 4, 14, 20, 22(1), 23 and 24(1). 131 1954 Convention, arts. 13, 15, 17(1), 18, 19, 21, 22(2) and 26. 132 1954 Convention, arts. 15, 17, 18, 19, 21, 23, 24, 26, 28 and 31. 133 Currently, the 1954 Convention has 90 parties, and the 1961 Convention 78 parties. <https://treaties.un.org/pages/Home.aspx?clang=_en>. 134 <https://treaties.un.org/pages/Home.aspx?clang=_en>. 129 14 Academy of European Law