LEGAL INSTRUMENTS AND STATES’ RESPONSIBILITIES Several international and regional instruments affirm the right of every individual to a nationality or are designed to resolve the issue of statelessness: • The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights guarantees that: “Everyone has the right to a nationality” and should not be arbitrarily deprived of citizenship. • The 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons defines who is stateless under international law and calls on signatory countries to grant them minimum rights, including lawful residence in appropriate cases, identity and travel documents. • The 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness establishes safeguards to prevent children from becoming stateless at birth and to protect them against loss of nationality later in life. • A series of international human rights instruments affirm the right to a nationality without discrimination and the right of children to acquire a nationality. They include the 1965 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the 1979 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, and the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child. • Regional treaties such as the 1969 American Convention on Human Rights, the 2004 Arab Charter on Human Rights, the 1990 African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child and the 1997 European Convention on Nationality affirm that everyone has the right to a nationality. They seek to ensure that states fully respect the right of individuals to a nationality. Despite this impressive array of legal instruments and repeated calls for action by the UN General Assembly and other international bodies, states have been reluctant to act. While 148 countries are party to the 1951 Refugee Convention and/or its 1967 Protocol, only 66 states are party to the 1954 Statelessness Convention and even fewer, 38, were party to the 1961 Convention as of June 2011. UNHCR has used the 50th anniversary of the 1961 Convention in August 2011 to urge nations to accede to the two main statelessness documents. THE WORLD’S STATELESS PEOPLE • 2011 5