responsible for conferring or withdrawing nationality from individuals, or for clarifying nationality status where nationality is acquired or withdrawn automatically.26 16. In determining statelessness, attention should be paid not only to the nationality law of the state, but also to government practice.27 17. Articles 5 to 8 of the 1961 Convention establish a basic rule that an individual should not lose or be deprived of their nationality if that would cause statelessness. Where the 1961 Convention requires that a person shall not lose or be deprived of nationality if this would render them stateless, States are required to examine whether the person possesses another nationality at the time of loss or deprivation, not whether they could acquire a nationality at some future date.28 An individual’s nationality is to be assessed as at the time of determination of eligibility under the 1954 Convention. It is neither a historic nor a predictive exercise. The question to be answered is whether, at the point of making an Article 1(1) determination, an individual is a national of the country or countries in question. Therefore, if an individual is partway through a process for acquiring nationality but those procedures are yet to be completed, theycannot be considered as a national for the purposes of Article 1(1) of the 1954 Convention. Similarly, where requirements or procedures for loss, deprivation or renunciation of nationality have only been partially fulfilled or completed, the individual is still a national for the purposes of the stateless person definition.29 This principle is reflected in the decision of Al-Jedda v Secretary of State,30 in which the Court held that a plain reading of the relevant statute and surrounding guidance indicated that the State must look at whether the person holds another nationality at the date of the deprivation order, not whether he could have obtained another nationality and failed to do so. 18. In addition, States must accept that a person is not a national of a particular State if the authorities of that State refuse to recognize that person as a national. A State cannot avoid its obligations based on its own interpretation of another State’s nationality laws which conflicts with the interpretation applied by the other State concerned.31 Where there is an assertion that an individual holds another nationality, this assessment “should be informed by consultations with and written confirmation from the State in question. 26 UNHCR, ‘Handbook on Protection of Stateless Persons’ June , para . Pham v Secretary of State for the Home Department (2015) UKSC 19(1), available at: https://www.supremecourt.uk/cases/docs/uksc-20130150-judgment.pdf, para 38. 28 UNHCR,Guidelines No 5 (2020), para 101. 29 UNHCR, ‘Handbook on Protection of Stateless Persons’ June , para . 30 Al-Jedda v Secretary of State for the Home Department (2013) UKSC 62, available at: https://www.supremecourt.uk/cases/docs/uksc-20120129-judgment.pdf. The UK Secretary of State had argued that it was the failure of the applicant to apply for another nationality, rather than the deprivation order, which left the applicant stateless; the deprivation order itself did not render Al-Jedda stateless because he could have regained Iraqi nationality by application. 31 UNHCR, ’Tunis Conclusions‘ , para . 27 26