Opening statement from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Opening statement from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Extracts from the opening statement at the 70th session of UNHCR’s Executive Committee By Filippo Grandi, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees 7 October 2019 Mr. Chairman, In 2011, my predecessor convened a ministerial meeting on the 60th anniversary of the 1951 Refugee Convention, and the 50th of the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. It is fair to say that until then, the statelessness mandate had been a rather peripheral aspect of UNHCR’s work. Clearly, you didn’t see it that way. More than 60 states and regional entities came forward with pledges aimed at reducing statelessness, and that groundswell of political will and commitment became the catalyst for the #IBelong Campaign, launched in 2014. Spurred on by the energy that had emerged, we decided to fix a time limit – ten years – to bring statelessness to an end. Now, as we mark the halfway point, it’s time to take stock and renew the commitment that set us on the path towards this bold ambition. This is the aim of the High-Level Segment that will follow in a few moments, as part of this Executive Committee meeting. When we talk about statelessness, we often find ourselves speaking of laws, documents and other technicalities. These are critical, and are where the hard work has to happen, but when we frame statelessness purely in legal terms, we lose sight of the allencompassing blight it casts on people’s lives, pushing them to the margins of society, denying them basic rights and a sense of identity. This is an area in which – for relatively little investment – wide-reaching impact is within our reach. U N H C R > H I G H - L E V E L S E G M E N T O N S T A T E L E S S N E S S : R E S U LT S A N D H I G H L I G H T S 7