Stateless Persons to address statelessness, 47 UNHCR first started issuing country-by-country statistics on persons under its statelessness mandate in its Global Trends report for 2004. 48 These data, found in a separate table that has been added to UNHCR’s statistical reporting specifically for this purpose, 49 constitute a central tool in understanding the current state of statelessness statistics worldwide. METHODOLOGICAL CHALLENGES TO GATHERING DATA ON STATELESSNESS Statelessness is often an invisible problem, making it a distinctly challenging phenomenon to map. Furthermore, due to inherent complications in quantifying statelessness, the reliability of statistics, even when available, can also be questionable. Here are some of the main difficulties: DEFINITIONAL ISSUES 47 This is in accordance with successive resolutions adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations, including UNGA Resolution 50/152 of 9 February 1996 (A/RES/50/152). 48 UNHCR, 2004 Global Refugee Trends, 17 June 2005, available at: http://www.unhcr.org/42b283744.html . 49 See Annex Table 7, ‘Persons under UNHCR’s statelessness mandate’. 50 UNHCR, Handbook on Protection of Stateless Persons, 30 June 2014, available at: http://www.refworld.org/ docid/53b676aa4.html . 51 This is, for instance, the case for otherwise stateless children born in Lebanon who, according to the letter of the law, acquire Lebanese nationality, but this safeguard is not implemented in practice. Frontiers Ruwad Association, Invisible Citizens: Humiliation and a life in the shadows. A legal and policy study on statelessness in Lebanon, 2011. 52 UNHCR, Global Action Plan to End Statelessness 2014–2024, page 24, available at: http://ibelong.unhcr.org/cmsweb/upl/entities/story/FINAL%20Global%20Action%20Plan%20 -%20PDF%20Version.pdf. 53 These instruments can be downloaded here: http:// unstats.un.org/unsd/demographic/products/dyb/dybquest. htm . See in particular Section 2 of the annual Population Estimates Questionnaire and Table 20 of the Population Census Questionnaire: General Characteristics. 54 See, for instance, UNHCR, The State of the World’s Refugees, 2012, at page 108. 55 UNHCR, Handbook on Protection of Stateless Persons, 30 June 2014, paragraphs 58–61, available at: http://www.refworld. org/docid/53b676aa4.html . 56 UNHCR and Asylum Aid, Mapping Statelessness in the United Kingdom, November 2011, available at: http://refworld. org/docid/4ecb6a192.html . 42 UNHCR Statistical Yearbook 2013 The definition of statelessness is not as straightforward as it appears to be. The term ‘under the operation of its law’ has been authoritatively interpreted as being a question of both fact and law. 50 Consequently, there are persons who would be eligible for a particular nationality but who are nonetheless stateless because they are not considered as nationals by the competent authorities of the relevant state. 51 It may not be apparent to the individuals concerned or to an outside observer that they are stateless. On the other hand, some may selfidentify as stateless – for instance, because they do not feel connected to their state due to political beliefs or personal sentiments – even though they do hold a nationality. Historic and enduring miscomprehension of the scope and application of the definition of a stateless person also impedes the accurate quantification of statelessness. Moreover, many States do not have a definition of statelessness in their domestic laws, or they maintain a definition or interpretation that diverges from that understood under international law, such that it is not applied uniformly across all jurisdictions. GAPS IN DATA-COLLECTION TOOLS In most countries, statelessness is not high on the political agenda. Consequently, state authorities may not deem it important to put in place measures to identify stateless persons and enhance the accuracy of their figures on statelessness. Of 142 national population censuses undertaken since 2005 for which the United Nations possesses questionnaires, only 112 included a question on nationality. Of these, less than 25 per cent included a precoded option for census-takers to record the responses of those who self-identified as stateless. 52 The UN Statistics Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), in the instruments it uses to collect data from States on an annual basis and following a census exercise, also does not request reporting on the number of stateless persons. However, it does ask for data on the number of both refugees and citizens, as well as foreign or non-citizens and persons of unknown citizenship status within a State’s territory. 53 Furthermore, although UNHCR and other UN agencies frequently carry out registrations of refugees and in some cases internally displaced persons, it is not common for them to register stateless persons. 54 Thus, it is not merely government data that are incomplete; the UN’s own data often do not provide a comprehensive picture of statelessness. Indeed, it may not be advisable for UNHCR to seek to conduct large-scale registration of stateless persons because, in the majority of cases, stateless persons remain in their ‘own country’. As such, the ideal solution for them would be to be granted nationality by the State concerned, not recognition and registration as stateless persons. 55 Even where data-collection exercises include information on statelessness, this does not always yield comprehensive or reliable results. For instance, a 2011 mapping study of statelessness in the United Kingdom identified several methodological flaws in its statelessness data, and found diverging information across different data sets. 56 Meanwhile, some statelessness-specific data-collection exercises, such as those carried out in recent years in Myanmar and the Philippines, are limited in their scope – i.e. collecting data only in one area of the country or only with respect to one target population affected by statelessness. Many stateless persons identify with the country of their birth, descent, and