. Identification re ention and reduction o state essness on such persons as would otherwise become stateless as a result of the transfer or acquisition. In 1999, the International Law Commission adopted comprehensive Articles on Nationality of Natural Persons in Relation to the Succession of States 91, which set out principles that serve to avoid statelessness in cases of State succession. The UN General Assembly is to consider whether it will elaborate a convention or declaration based on these Articles. Actors in Europe may also rely on the 2006 Convention on the Avoidance of Statelessness in relation to State Succession as well as on Articles 18-20 of the 1997 European Convention on Nationality. Good practice: State succession – Moldova issues identity documents to former Soviet citizens to prevent statelessness Until late 2012 – 21 years after the break-up of the Soviet Union – over 220,000 people in The Republic of Moldova were holding expired Soviet ID cards but had no identity documents from Moldova or any of the other successor States. The expired ID cards did not grant them access to all basic citizenship rights, such as voting or social assistance. The Government repeatedly called upon the population to acquire Moldovan IDs but, only when it launched a campaign in 2014 offering the new IDs for free, did they start to see success. As many elderly people live on 1000 Moldovan Lei (some 50 USD) a month, the cost of a new ID at approximately 10 USD, had been too expensive for many to afford. With support from UNHCR, all pensioners in Moldova received an information leaflet about the campaign. The authorities sent mobile teams to those who were unable to visit the Passport Office and UNHCR’s partner, the Legal Center of Advocates (LCA), established a hotline for free legal information. Between January 2013 and June 2015 alone, a total of 212,000 people benefitted from the campaign – one out of every 20 Moldovan citizens – making 65