no other claim to a status in the country of refuge), hence the ability to reach that country is key to an interpretation of Article 3 ECHR, whereas Article 1A(2) 1951 Refugee Convention is about status determination and the rights and obligations within the country of asylum, of which guarantee against refoulement is one. In Canada, the Federal Court of Appeal held that ‘people are not refugees solely by virtue of their statelessness. They must still bring themselves within the terms of the definition set forth in the Convention … Statelessness does not give a person an advantage over those refugees who are not stateless’. 223 The Court highlighted the key distinction between refugees who are nationals of a State and those who are stateless, namely, that in the case of the former the Convention definition talks about the unwillingness ‘to avail himself of the protection of that country’, whereas in the case of the latter it talks about the unwillingness ‘to return to’ the country of his former habitual residence. 224 The point being that both groups of people must also have a well-founded fear of persecution on one of the Convention grounds if they are to be successful under the 1951 Convention. The implication being that protection needs in cases where no persecution exists be determined under relevant legal provisions on statelessness. The same conclusion was reached in New Zealand (see below).225 The Federal Court of Appeal of Canada recognizes that denial of the right to return to a country can in itself be an act of persecution, provided persecutorial intent or conduct can be shown, namely, discriminatory treatment on a Convention ground. 226 According to the Federal Court of Appeal, the fundamental question to ask comes down to ‘why the applicant is being denied entry to a country of former habitual residence’. 227 If the answer to this question is simply the lack of a valid residency permit, the person in question should not be granted refugee status.228 Similarly, in Australia, the two leading cases, Diatlov v. Minister for Immigration & Mutlicultural Affairs and Savvin v. Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs, 229 Thabet v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration), [1998] 4 F.C. 21, Canada: Federal Court of Appeal, 11 May 1998, available at: http://www.refworld.org/docid/47bda9972.html [accessed 4 June 2013] 224 Ibid. 225 NZ RSAA Appeal No.72635/01 2002, paras.65-68. See also NZ RSAA Appeal No. 76187, 18 June 2008, denying refugee status to a stateless person who voluntarily renounced his USA citizenship on the ground that meaningful State protection would be available upon his return to his country of former habitual residence (i.e., the USA). 226 Maarouf and Abdel-Khalik v Minister of Employment and Immigration (1994), 73 FTR 211 (FCTD), and Altawil v Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) (1996), 114 FTR 241 (FCTD), at p.243. 227 E.g., Thabet v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration), [1998] 4 F.C. 21, Canada: Federal Court of Appeal, 11 May 1998, available at: http://www.refworld.org/docid/47bda9972.html [accessed 4 June 2013] 228 As decided by the Fed Court of Appeal of Canada in Thabet v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration), [1998] 4 F.C. 21, Canada: Federal Court of Appeal, 11 May 1998, available at: http://www.refworld.org/docid/47bda9972.html [accessed 4 June 2013] 229 Both cases were decided by the Federal Court of Australia. Diatlov v Minister for Immigration & Multicultural Affairs [1999] FCA 468, (1999) 167 ALR 313; and Savvin v. Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs (2000) 171 A.L.R. 483 – in this case Katz J. came to the same conclusion reached by the EWCA in Revenko, but by 223 40