CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS Statelessness is a serious human rights issue, affecting people around the world, including children. Although Australia has historically welcomed stateless people since at least World War II, there remains little understanding of the issue and significant gaps in protections for stateless adults and children. The learnings gained on this Fellowship have provided invaluable understandings of how the Stateless Legal Clinic can be expanded and strengthened in Australia into a national legal service providing critical legal education and aid to stateless children and adults. The Fellowship underscored the importance of the emphasis the Australian Stateless Legal Clinic places on supporting and championing the lived experience of statelessness, and the need for greater resourcing and support to be invested in an Australian stateless-led advocacy organisation akin to United Stateless in America (should this be something members of the Australian stateless community wish to establish). Although the Fellowship has helped establish Australia as home to innovative legal education and aid services for stateless people, we are seriously lagging behind countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States as a nation when it comes to critical legislative and policy protections for stateless people. If Australia is to meaningfully commit to protecting stateless people and reducing statelessness (as it has pledged to do by ratifying the two international statelessness treaties) it must introduce a statelessness determination procedure, coupled with a pathway to citizenship for all stateless people in Australia, regardless of their origin of birth. The Stateless Legal Clinic at the Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness looks forward to sharing the learnings gained through this Fellowship with members of the Australian stateless community, the Australian Government and the Australian legal profession, with the aim of improving pathways to citizenship for all stateless persons in Australia, and the realisation of the rights and entitlements enjoyed by all Australians. 82

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