Part I. Introduction and Context with regard to the conflict of nationality laws and preventing statelessness for married women. At the same time, however, some of its provisions conflict with complete equality between men and women as prescribed by CEDAW.120 Some states have therefore since denounced this treaty.121 Refugees and the stateless (1951–1961) Because the international community was concerned about the status of people who remained without proper protection after World War II, particularly in Europe, a number of legal instruments were adopted in the context of the United Nations (UN) to address the issues that refugees and stateless people face(d).122 The 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (1951 Convention)123 was the first to be adopted and concerns the protection of refugees as defined in this treaty. Not only does the 1951 Convention set forth a definition of a refugee, it also includes basic minimum standards for the treatment of refugees and contains important principles: non-discrimination124, non-penalization (for illegal entry or stay) and non-refoulement.125 As the 1951 Convention created binding obligations for states, states were able to share the burden of responsibility of refugees among them.126 It is thus an instrument of protection, but also of burden-sharing between states. According to the definition of Article 1(A)(2) of the 1951 Convention127 a refugee is any person “owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 30 states still provided in their national laws for the loss of nationality of a married women and made this conditional on the acquisition of the nationality of the husband. Art 1 1957 Convention provides that states agree that marriage, dissolution thereof or the change of nationality by the husband during marriage, shall not automatically affect the nationality of the wife. See para 1.5.1 (under the header ‘UN human rights treaties’). Eg Luxembourg, the Netherlands and United Kingdom. See also Gerard-René de Groot & Olivier Willem Vonk, International Standards on Nationality Law. Text, Cases and Materials (Wolf Legal Publishers 2015) 151 and the UN Treaty Collection <https://treaties.un.org/Pages/ViewDetailsIII. aspx?src=TREATY&mtdsg_no=XVI-2&chapter=16&Temp=mtdsg3&clang=_en> accessed 4 September 2021. See also chapter 2 of this book. Convention relating to the Status of Refugees (adopted 28 July 1951, entered into force 22 April 1954) 189 UNTS 137 (1951 Convention/Refugee Convention). Art 3 1951 Convention. See more elaborately for instance Guy S Goodwin-Gill & Jane McAdam, The Refugee in International Law (3rd ed, Oxford University Press 2007), which gives a broad overview of the international laws relating to refugees and includes chapters like ‘Non-Refoulement in the 1951 Refugee Convention’. Terje Einarsen, ‘Draft ing History of the 1951 Convention and the 1967 Protocol’ in Andreas Zimmerman (ed), The 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and Its 1967 Protocol. A Commentary (Oxford University Press 2011) 37–73, 40; preamble to the 1951 Convention. Read in line with the 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees (adopted 31 January 1967, entered into force 4 October 1967) 606 UNTS 267, which mainly concerns the universality of the refugee definition. Intersentia