stateless status and expulsion from italian territory 157 Persons who are de facto stateless often have a nationality according to the law, but this nationality is not effective or cannot be proved or verified.2 In fact, according to the “Prato Conclusions” adopted by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (“unhcr”), de facto stateless persons “are persons outside the country of their nationality who are unable or, for valid reasons, are unwilling to avail themselves of the protection of that country”.3 By contrast, a de jure stateless person is a person who is not considered as a national by any country under the operation of its law. Only people in this latter category are covered by the definition of stateless persons included in Article 1(1) of the New York Convention, a definition that – according to the International Law Commission – can be considered to have acquired a customary nature.4 One may wonder why the New York Convention excludes de facto stateless persons from its scope, and whether this exclusion is fair and reasonable. In fact, it must be considered that de facto stateless persons are deprived of an effective nationality and – at the same time – cannot benefit from the status of stateless persons provided for by the same Convention.5 As regards the reasons underlying the choice made by the Convention, the context in which the Convention was drawn up should be remembered. Only a few years before its adoption, in 1951, the Geneva Convention Relating to the Status of Refugee (hereinafter: “Geneva Convention”) had been adopted, and at the time there was a common (erroneous) belief that the latter Convention missing; c) some people may have difficulties proving their identity; d) countries may be unable or unwilling to cooperate in identifying persons who are their nationals; e) nationality legislation may be unclear or be misinterpreted or misapplied by the Executive; f) a State may consider that a person has the nationality of another State and therefore that the person has not acquired its own nationality. 3 See unhcr, The Concept of Stateless Persons under International Law, Summary Conclusions, Expert meeting organized by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Prato, Italy, 27–28 May 2010. However, as noted by the unhcr, “the term de facto statelessness is not defined in any international instrument and there is no treaty regime specific to this category of persons”. See unhcr, Handbook on Protection of Stateless Persons under the 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, Geneva, 2014, p. 5. It must also be stressed that the definition of de facto statelessness “is used in different senses as a term descriptive of a condition which in one or more respects is considered to be parallel to, but different from, statelessness”, Fripp, Nationality and Statelessness in the International Law of Refugee Status, Oxford, 2016, p. 101. 4 See International Law Commission, Draft Articles on Diplomatic Protection with Commentaries, Report of the International Law Commission on the work of its Fifty-eighth session, 2006, UN Doc. A/61/10. 5 Cordova, Nationality Including Statelessness – Third Report on the Elimination or Reduction of Statelessness, a/cn.4/81, yilc, 1954, Vol. ii, p. 27 ff., p. 30. The Italian Review of International and Comparative Law 2 (2022) 154–162