Expert Meeting The Concept of Stateless Persons under International Law Summary Conclusions Expert meeting organized by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Prato, Italy, 27-28 May 2010 This was a first of a series of Expert Meetings convened by UNHCR in the context of the 50th Anniversary of the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness with the purpose of drafting guidelines under UNHCR’s statelessness mandate on (i) the definition of a “stateless person” in Article 1(1) of the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons; (ii) the concept of de facto statelessness; (iii) determination of whether a person is stateless; (iv) the status in national law to be granted to stateless persons and; (v) the prevention of statelessness among persons born on the territory or to nationals abroad. The discussion was informed by two background papers. The first was “The definition of ‘Stateless Person’ in the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons: Article 1(1) – The Inclusion Clause” which was drafted by a UNHCR consultant, Ms. Ruma Mandal. The second paper was entitled “UNHCR and De Facto Statelessness” and was authored by Hugh Massey of UNHCR. Professor Guy Goodwin-Gill of Oxford University also provided a written contribution, the conclusions of which were presented in summary form during the meeting. The twenty four participants came from 16 countries and included experts from governments, NGOs, academia, the judiciary, the legal profession and international organizations. The meeting allowed for a wide-ranging discussion which focused on stateless persons as defined in Article 1(1) of the 1954 Convention (sometimes termed de jure stateless persons), before turning to the concept of de facto statelessness. The meeting reviewed principles of customary international law, general principles of international law and treaty standards, national legislation, administrative practice and judgments of national courts. It also took into account decisions of international tribunals and treaty monitoring bodies as well as scholarly writing. The following summary conclusions do not represent the individual views of each participant or necessarily of UNHCR, but reflect broadly the understandings emerging from the discussion. The meeting was funded by the European Commission