PART 3. COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF PROVISIONS IN THE 1954 CONVENTION RELATING TO THE STATUS OF STATELESS PERSONS, AND LEGISLATION OF THE KYRGYZ REPUBLIC ON THE RIGHTS OF STATELESS PERSONS 3.1 Brief summary of the main provisions in the 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons The 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons (henceforward the 1954 Convention) is the primary international instrument approved in modern times that aims to regulate and improve the status of stateless persons and ensure that stateless persons are accorded their fundamental rights and freedoms without discrimination. The Convention was approved with the aim of expanding its provisions to people without citizenship who are not refugees and therefore are not protected by the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees. Initially, the 1954 Convention was originally intended to be as a Protocol to the 1951 Convention. Provisions in the 1954 Convention do not replace documents used to be stow citizenship on people who were born and usually live on the territory of a state. There are existing international legal principles which consider this issue. The widening of rights and improving the status of persons without citizenship in accordance with the conditions of this Convention does not therefore lessen the necessity to receive citizenship. The main provisions of the 1954 Convention can be summarised as follows: 1. Definition of a stateless person Article 1 states: For the purpose of this Convention, the term “stateless person” means a person who is not considered as a national by any State under the operation of its law. This is a strictly legal definition. It does not speak of the quality of nationality, of the manner on which nationality is ascribed, or of access to a nationality. The definition is one simply of legal fact, an operation of law by which the State’s nationality legislation defines automatically who has nationality. There are, however, principles involved in the acquisition, bestowal, loss and renunciation of nationality, which are important in the determination of who should have access to nationality even in cases where by operation of law they do not acquire it. 2. Persons excluded from the 1954 Convention The Convention does not apply to: a) Those who were, at the time the Convention came into force, receiving assistance from United Nations agencies, with the exception of UNHCR; b) Persons who already have rights and obligations attached to the possession of nationality in the country in which they reside. In other words, where the individual has already attained the maximum legal status possible (status equivalent to that of nationals), the accession of that State to the Convention, with provisions less extensive than those already granted to stateless persons under national law, will not jeopardise those rights. The importance of nationality itself, however, must be borne in mind; Small Changes ‫ ـ‬Big Gains: An Action Plan to Prevent and Reduce Statelessness in the Kyrgyz Republic 36