Chapter 1. Introduction moving beyond the law.10 It does so by focusing on the region that constitutes the cradle of modern conceptions of nationality: Europe. It sketches the background and context, before providing a deeper analysis of legal norms that have been enacted at a regional level to address statelessness, aiming to understand what is truly needed to prevent and solve statelessness. In doing so, this research adds a statelessness perspective to the broader discussions on nationality and citizenship, which contributes to understanding these concepts. 1.1. R ESEARCH QUESTIONS AND APPROACH In light of the above, this research explores and attempts to understand the legal and political approaches that states have taken together, at the regional level – in Europe, to address statelessness. In particular, this study considers the role that European law11 can play in preventing and solving statelessness in Europe. This means that this study of statelessness is narrowed down in two ways: in the geographical sense, focusing on Europe; and as regards the topic or aspects of statelessness that it concerns – preventing and solving statelessness. The European context, as we will see, provides an interesting and specific context to study nationality and statelessness questions, given its historical development and its political and legal cooperation. The issue of statelessness is not new to the continent and questions around protection of stateless people and statelessness determination have been researched already. At the same time, there has – to date – not been a comprehensive mapping of European legal instruments that address preventing and solving statelessness, and thereby, nationality matters, through a statelessness lens. This dissertation therefore also aims to make a contribution to better understanding the concept of nationality, or citizenship, by examining what the current approaches to preventing and solving statelessness in European law tell us about (the content of) the current conception of nationality. Hence, the main research question of this project is as follows: How does European law contribute to preventing and solving statelessness in Europe and what does this contribution add to the understanding of nationality today? This research question defines this research’s approach, which is to first identify and analyze how European laws address the prevention of and solutions to statelessness. After having gained an understanding of Europe’s legal instruments for addressing statelessness, which includes any good practices or new developments as well as gaps in the legal framework, an examination of these norms, to better understand what 10 11 Please note that this research was completed 3 January 2022. The notion of ‘European law’ in the context of this research is considered further in para 1.4.4 of this chapter. Intersentia 5