S884 COLUMBIA JOURNAL OF TRANSNATIONAL LAW [56:S855 Throughout the early 1990s, UNHCR conducted emergency operations regarding the mass displacement of persons in the former Yugoslavia, 187 Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Tajikistan. 188 This included the provision of assistance not only to refugees but also to stateless persons. 189 UNHCR concurrently petitioned the Mauritanian government to permit the collective return of its expelled persons and to provide State-issued identification to then-unrecognized persons. 190 However, UNHCR lacked a clear mandate regarding the Statelessness Conventions and was not empowered to support stateless persons in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and West Africa. 191 Between 1990 and 1994, UNHCR’s Executive Committee cobbled together a justification for the continuation of its support for stateless persons, based on the relationship between the statuses of refugees and stateless persons and “the absence of an international body with a general mandate for stateless persons.” 192 Scholars 193 questioned the legitimacy of UNHCR’s “de facto extension” of its authority to effect international protection and called for the adoption of a U.N. General Assembly resolution granting UNHCR the statelessness mandate. UNHCR received the mandate in 1995. 194 In addition to granting UNHCR the statelessness mandate, the States of the Council of Europe adopted the 1997 European Convention on Nationality. 195 The European Convention on Nationality, “[b]earing in mind the numerous international instruments relating to nationality,” 196 rearticulated principles regarding the extension of nationality found in earlier international instruments. 197 It did not seek Northern Senegal: A Case Study, U.N. Doc. EPAU/2005/11 (2005). 187. Wilbert Van Hovel, Issues Arising from the UNHCR Operation in Former Yugoslavia, in THE PROBLEM OF REFUGEES IN THE LIGHT OF CONTEMPORARY INTERNATIONAL LAW ISSUES 19, 20 (1996). 188. Michel Iogna-Prat, supra note 179, at 30. 189. Id. 190. Tenth Annual Activity Report of the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights 1996/97 at 42 (1997), http://www.achpr.org/files/activity-reports/10/achpr20and21_ actrep10_19961997_eng.pdf [https://perma.cc/P5RH-D7RE]. 191. Id. at 31; Exec. Comm. of the High Comm’r’s Programme, Stateless Persons: A Discussion Note, ¶¶ 20–22, U.N. Doc. EC/1992/SCP/CRP.4 (Apr. 1, 1992). 192. Seet, supra note 175, at 18–19 (discussing how UNHCR slowly adopted more responsibility for stateless persons, even before receiving the statelessness mandate). 193. See, e.g., id.; Van Hovel, supra note 187, at 20. 194. G.A. Res. 50/152 (Dec. 21, 1995). 195. European Convention on Nationality, E.T.S. No. 166, Nov. 6, 1997. 196. Id. at preamble. 197. See generally id. Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2954729