Practical Measures to Meaningfully Implement Article 1(1) The student learning experience was also positive, with one JD student stating the Stateless Children Legal Centre has been an experience unparalleled with anything else in my three years at law school. The opportunity to engage first-hand with clients has equipped me with a wealth of practical legal skills, and provided me with humbling insights into the challenges faced by stateless persons in Australia.42 Media coverage of the SCLC also provided a platform to increase awareness of the issue of child statelessness in Australia within the broader community. 43 With support of the Hiam Choulay Trust, the SCLC was formally launched in September 2021.44 Over the next five years, it is hoped the clinic will be able to assist many more stateless children to apply for Australian citizenship and, eventually, expand to include legal services for stateless adults. C Issue Three: The First ‘Mapping’ Study of Australia’s Stateless Population Finally, a comprehensive understanding of the number and location of stateless persons, including children, is lacking in Australia. The SCLC and SCAN will begin to identify the number of stateless children in Australia on a small scale, through outreach and networking within the Australian legal community. On a broader scale, the Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness has recently embarked on the first comprehensive mapping study of statelessness in Australia, with the aim of developing a legal and policy framework for identifying and protecting stateless persons nationally. THE NEED FOR PRACTICAL MEASURES TO MEANINGFULLY REDUCE CHILD STATELESSNESS The three practical measures outlined previously aim to give meaningful implementation to Australia’s obligations under art 1(1) of the 1961 Convention in cases where stateless children have a prima facie entitlement to citizenship. The commentary, however, does not overlook other problematic aspects of Australia’s implementation of art 1(1) in domestic law, particularly the focus afforded by s 21(8) of the Citizenship Act on a child’s ‘entitlement to, rather than actual grant of, foreign citizenship’.45 Imperfections aside, there is a pathway for stateless children to apply for citizenship in Australia that is currently underutilised. Practical measures outlined previously aim to address this issue as a matter of priority. 42 43 44 45 ‘SCLC Web Page’ (n 40). See, eg, Max Chalmers, ‘Legal Clinic to Count Australia's Stateless People as it Helps Give Children a Place to Call Home’, ABC News (online, 25 March 2021) <https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-25/stateless-in-australia-citizenship-uncertainfuture/100025166>. The Hiam Choulay Trust is generously funded by the Cameron Foundation and is named in honour of her son, Fadi, who resides in Australia. Fadi was the first person to be granted an Australian skilled migrant visa through the ‘Talent Beyond Boundaries’ program. For more about Hiam and her son Fadi, see ‘When No Country in the World Recognises You as a Citizen, Life Is an Obstacle’, ABC News (online, 4 October 2019) <https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-04/what-it-is-like-to-be-stateless/11566518>. Kim Rubenstein and Jacqueline Field, ‘Conceptualising Australian Citizenship for Children: A Human Rights Perspective’ (2013) 20(1) Australian International Law Journal 77, 89 (emphasis added). 211