21. Another important barrier to accessing the status of a stateless person relates to the voluntariness of the statelessness status. It is irrelevant for the definition of a stateless person whether the person caused his or her own statelessness in any way, and therefore this factor should also be irrelevant for the outcome of a statelessness determination procedure.26 22. Under-inclusion can also occur if a determination procedure excludes those stateless persons who had a nationality in the past or can acquire a nationality in the future. The international definition of a stateless person does not define a stateless person as someone who has never had a nationality or cannot obtain one in the future, and therefore statelessness determination procedures should focus on the status of an individual at the moment of determination27 in order to avoid under-inclusion. Finally, sometimes persons who fall under the exclusion clauses of the 1954 Conventions are prevented from being recognized as stateless by rules of national determination procedures, which also leads to under-inclusion.28 Such practice contradicts the UNHCR’s interpretation of the exclusion clauses under which exclusion clauses merely preclude certain categories of persons from benefitting from protection, but are not meant to prevent establishing the legal fact of statelessness of a person who does not have any nationality. 23. While under-inclusion results in excluding stateless persons from protection they need, and is the primary concern for UNHCR, some Member States of the Council of Europe operate definitions of a stateless persons that may result in over-inclusion, in comparison to the international definition of a stateless person. Some states define ‘a stateless person’ not through their lack of nationality, but through their lack of proof of nationality. The UNHCR advocates against over-inclusive definitions of a stateless person,29 in order to have a consistent and coherent global statelessness protection regime. 24. The UNHCR Handbook on Protection of Stateless Persons addresses a number of other practicalities that the authorities may be faced with when introducing a new procedure for determining statelessness status, such as which states need to be considered as potential states of nationality, which evidence should be admissible and how it should be evaluated, what to do if a stateless person is also seeking asylum and so on. 25. One major persisting challenge of determining statelessness relates to evidentiary requirements. There is by definition no ‘default’ state which, based on the nationality link, can be expected to supply the individual with identity or travel documents or any other relevant documentary evidence. That is not to say that in all cases of statelessness there would be no state willing and able to provide documentary evidence of the individual’s identity, family links or residence history. Some cases of statelessness are in fact very well documented.30 Those are, however, rather exceptional, and therefore no blanket requirement can be placed on every individual to supply specific types of state-issued documents in the course of a statelessness determination procedure. UNHCR’s handbook therefore emphasizes the 26 Voluntariness might under the current statelessness regime, however, become relevant when deciding on the form and the scope of protection a stateless individual is entitled to, see UNHCR Handbook on the Protection of Stateless Persons (Geneva 2014), paras. 51, 158-162. See more in chapter 7, section 7.3. 27 UNHCR Handbook on the Protection of Stateless Persons (Geneva 2014), para 50. 28 For example, UK Immigration Rules, part 14: stateless persons, section 402, which state that a ‘person is excluded from recognition as a stateless person’ if he or she belongs to the category of persons excluded from the application of the 1954 Convention. 29 See, for example, UNHCR Armenia, Question on Nationality and Statelessness in Armenia, (March 2013), p. 60. 30 See, for example, the Dutch judgment Court of ‘s Gravenhage (in Dutch Rechtbank ‘s Gravenhage) Nos. AWB 11/39533 and AWB 11/39534 of 8 December 2011. See also K. Swider, ‘Statelessness Determination in the Netherlands’, Amsterdam Centre for European Law and Governance Working Paper Series, No. 2014-04, (May 2014), ‘Anya’s story’ on pp. 19-20. 9