Stateless Persons Fig. 3.2 Global stateless population within UNHCR mandates The total global stateless population The stateless population within UNHCR’s protection mandate (including refugees, asylum-seekers and IDPs) The stateless population exclusively within UNHCR’s statelessness protection mandate (i.e. non-refugees, asylum-seekers or IDPs) strategies to address statelessness under this part of its mandate, and to avoid double counting of populations of concern, UNHCR’s statistical reporting indicates only the number of persons under its statelessness mandate. To reach the total figure for persons of concern to UNHCR, this number is added to those from the other population categories (refugees, asylum-seekers, IDPs, etc.). Thus, while international law defines a stateless person as anyone who is ‘not considered as a national by any state under the operation of its law’, in UNHCR’s statistical compilation on statelessness, several categories of stateless persons are not counted as stateless. This includes those who also fall within the protection mandates of other agencies of the United Nations (at present, only UNRWA) and those who also come under UNHCR’s other protection mandates (such as refugees, asylum-seekers, and to some extent IDPs). Figure 3.2 demonstrates the significance of this approach to the statistical picture on statelessness globally. Even if UNHCR’s statistical reporting were to capture reliable data for all countries, then, it excludes from its statelessness statistics a significant number of persons who are stateless as a matter of international law. While this does not mean that such individuals are not counted somewhere, it does make it difficult to 46 UNHCR Statistical Yearbook 2013 see the full magnitude and spread of the statelessness phenomenon. The Rohingya are a good case study to demonstrate the statistical complexities that emerge when one group has multiple protection needs. While according to some estimates there are 1.33 million Rohingya within Myanmar,70 another 1–1.5 million Rohingya live outside the country.71 Of the total global Rohingya population of an estimated more than 2.5 million (of which a significant majority are stateless), only 810,000 are counted as stateless in the UNHCR statistics.72 The following groups are not included: Rohingya refugees and asylum-seekers or those in a refugee-like situation who are included in UNHCR refugee statistics, Rohingya in a refugee-like situation who are not included in UNHCR’s refugee statistics, and Rohingya asylum-seekers whose registration is still pending. There is also uncertainty as to whether and how Rohingya IDPs in Myanmar (of whom there are an estimated 140,000) and Rohingya resettled refugees (likely to be a small group due to the lower numbers of resettlement) are represented in the statelessness statistics. And the Rohingya are not the only stateless group that suffers displacement and persecution. There are other significant groups of stateless refugees who are also ‘counted’ only in UNHCR’s refugee statistics. Looking at stateless groups that fall under the mandates of other UN agencies adds a further massive number of stateless Palestinian refugees, registered by UNRWA, who are also not reflected in UNHCR’s statistical reporting as refugees or stateless persons. 73 Excluding these other stateless populations from the global statelessness statistics can create confusion with regard to the situation of particular populations, as well as the application of international standards. For example, since the onset of the Syrian crisis, the number of stateless persons reported in the country has dropped from 300,000 at the start of 2011 to 160,000 at the end of 2013. Only part of this reduction is due to 70 Fortify Rights, Policies of Persecution. Ending abusive state policies against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, February 2014, available at: http://www.fortifyrights.org/downloads/ Policies_of_Persecution_Feb_25_Fortify_Rights.pdf. 71 This includes some 31,000 registered Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh and another 37,000 registered in Malaysia, but also an estimated further 300,000–500,000 unregistered Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh according to the Government, a few thousand unregistered in Malaysia and in Thailand, tens of thousands in Pakistan, and hundreds of thousands in Saudi Arabia, as well as more scattered across a number of other countries. See, for instance, the records of a Parliamentary debate in the United Kingdom, answers given by Ian Pearson based on information from UK missions, on 1 February 2006, available at: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ cm200506/cmhansrd/vo060201/text/60201w16.htm . 72 A full account of the challenges with respect to reporting on stateless Rohingya populations is given in the report The World’s Stateless. 73 See UNRWA in Figures, available at: http://www.unrwa. org/sites/default/files/2014_01_uif_-_english.pdf.