Part I. Introduction and Context Both thereby show their commitment to connecting between people and states, beyond borders so that everyone can enjoy their rights. Where nationality was always viewed as a confirmation of a bond between the person and a state, in Europe it is considered as a way to establish a bond between a person and a state that is essential for being included in European society. Statelessness as such is therefore undesirable, but it does not take away from the fact that large numbers of people remain excluded from society and from (certain) rights. How to mitigate this tension between in- and exclusion using the legal concept of nationality is therefore a question that the continent continues to be faced with. Today, statelessness still affects hundreds of thousands of people in Europe and different factors, including issues around discrimination, migration, registration and administration contribute to this. When considering the numbers on statelessness in Europe, causes relating to state succession remain most prevalent, despite specific legal instruments on this. Statelessness thus remains a widespread phenomenon at European level, despite efforts to reduce it through the adoption of legal instruments. At the same time, continued challenges presented by history taking another turn and crises emerging put further pressure on questions of nationality, identity and registration. Developments, also legally, to respond to these issues and to address statelessness remain ongoing. Think back also to the situation of the Grynszpan family from 1938 that was described at the beginning of this chapter. When comparing this to the account of Rashid in 2014 as included in paragraph 2.7, there are major differences between them of course. But both stories do have similarity: they concern people that for reasons of no state feeling responsible for them were or are left in difficult situations in which they suffer. Despite all historical and legal developments, despite the fact that the key legal instruments were adopted years ago by states, people remain trapped in situations of misery, uncertainty and rightlessness without a nationality. This begs the question where we currently stand at a European, regional level from a legal perspective in addressing statelessness and what more would be needed to truly solve statelessness in Europe. The efforts of the CoE and EU in this regard are explored in Part II of this research. This chapter furthermore served to help uncover any changes that would need to be made to the analytical framework as set out in paragraph 1.5.3. This framework was based on the exploration of international legal instruments and legal instruments from other regions in the world relating to the right to a nationality and statelessness. It helps to provide proper analysis of the European legal instruments in the chapters that follow, taking into account the context in which these were developed and operate. A couple of questions were visible from the analysis in chapter 1, such as whether norms addressing the nationality of women would amount to a separate category and whether norms relating to nationality matters and preventing statelessness in the context of state succession really needed to be included as distinct from the other categories. From this chapter, no urgent reason arose to include women’s nationality rights separately. 90 Intersentia