By-passing state power and neutralising state bureaucracies 59 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 Parties shall grant women equal rights with men with respect to the nationality of their children’; International Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Racial Discrimination, 1965 (ICERD), Article 5 ‘States Parties undertake to prohibit and to eliminate racial discrimination in all its forms and to guarantee the right of everyone, without distinction as to race, colour, or national or ethnic origin, to equality before the law, notably in the enjoyment of. . . (diii) the right to nationality.’ Provisions are also contained within the Convention on the Nationality of Married Women, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), and the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families. For a further list of extracts from treaty provisions relating to statelessness and nationality, see UNHCR, 2009 Extracts relating to nationality and statelessness from selected universal and regional human rights instruments www.unhcr.org/4517da8e2.html (accessed 20/01/2018). E.g. Committee on the Rights of the Child, 2014, 59th session, Concluding remarks: Myanmar, articles 41–44. CRC/MMR/3–4 Committee on the Right of the Child, 2004, 36th session, Concluding remarks: Myanmar, articles 64&65, CEDAW, 2016, Concluding Observations: Myanmar Articles 32&33 CEDAW/C/ MMR/CO/4–5, CEDAW, 2008, Concluding Observations: Myanmar Articles 30–33 CEDAW/C/MMR/CO/3. The term ‘stateless’ increasingly occurs in these treaty body documents on Myanmar from 2004 onwards. This coincides with UNHCR’s increasing focus on their statelessness mandate and engagement with international Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) on statelessness. See also Kingston (2013); Seet (2016). See, for example, UNICEF and UNHCR Being Invisible: Children Living in Statelessness. United Nations Treaty Collection Available at: https://treaties.un.org/pages/ViewDetailsII.aspx?src=TREATY&mtdsg_no=V-3&chapter=5&Temp=mtdsg2&cl ang=_en (accessed 24/04/2021). General Assembly Resolutions 3274 (XXIX) of 10 Dec 1974 and 31/36 of 30 Nov 1976 General Assembly Resolution 50/152 of 21 Dec 1995 Ibid Discussion during 2017 New York academic meeting on Statelessness, Citizenship & Inclusion, 5–9 Jun 2017, New York University, Open Society Foundation, and the Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion. Further Information on the I Belong Campaign Available at: www.unhcr.org/ ibelong/ (accessed 11/11/2021). Manley, M. and S. Persaud (2009) note, ‘Behind the Label “Statelessness” We Find a Broad Range of Issues, Many of Them Quite Complex, Including Birth Registration, Nationality Legislation, State Succession, Migration and International Law.’ The authors then go on to describe the broad international approach under the headings ‘protection’ and ‘prevention and reduction.’ E.g. UNICEF’s approaches involve engaging at the national level on the softer issues of birth registration. Similar approaches have been critiqued in the situation of Kurdish citizenship deprivation in Syria. See Bahram (2021). There are few public documents available on UNHCR’s approach to Rohingya statelessness or human rights abuses because they strategically approached these issues through closed-door meetings and back-door diplomacy. These findings are based on the conversations and meetings that I had with various international staff working in Myanmar for UN and NGOs as part of my work between 2010 and 2020 (organisations’ names kept confidential) as well as interviews for this research with Rohingya who had worked for UNHCR and partner organisations.