Background Background Action 6 of the Global Action Plan calls on States to grant protection status to stateless migrants through the establishment of statelessness determination procedures (SDPs), and facilitate their naturalization. A statelessness determination procedure serves to identify stateless persons to ensure that they enjoy the rights to which they are entitled until they acquire a nationality. For stateless populations in a non-migratory context who remain in their “own country”, often referred to as in situ populations, SDPs for the purpose of obtaining status as stateless persons are not optimal because of their longestablished ties to these countries. Based on existing international standards and State practice in the area of reduction of statelessness, such ties include long-term habitual residence or residence at the time of State independence or succession. Depending on the circumstances of these populations, States are encouraged to undertake targeted nationality campaigns or nationality verification efforts rather than to establish statelessness status through use of an SDP.1 In 2014, UNHCR published its Handbook on Protection of Stateless Persons. This doctrinal tool is intended to help governments, policy makers, administrative adjudicators, the judiciary, NGOs, legal practitioners, UNHCR staff and others to interpret and apply the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons (1954 Convention) and to facilitate the identification and proper treatment of such persons.2 Part Two of the Handbook covers the modalities for creating SDPs that enable States to recognize and grant protection status to stateless persons, including questions of evidence that arise in the course of such procedures.3 Part Three of the Handbook discusses the status of, or minimum protection to be afforded to, stateless persons under national law.4 1 UNHCR, Handbook on Protection of Stateless Persons, 30 June 2014, paragraph 58, available at: http://www.refworld. org/docid/53b676aa4.html 2 UNHCR, Handbook on Protection of Stateless Persons, 30 June 2014, available at: http://www.refworld.org/ docid/53b676aa4.htm 3 The content of Part Two of the Handbook was first published in UNHCR, Guidelines on Statelessness No. 2: Procedures for Determining whether an Individual is a Stateless Person, 5 April 2012, HCR/GS/12/02, (“UNHCR Procedures Guidelines”), available at: http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/4f7dafb52.html 4 The content of Part Three of the Handbook was first published in UNHCR, Guidelines on Statelessness No. 3: The Status of Stateless Persons at the National Level, 17 July 2012, HCR/GS/12/03, available at: http://www.refworld.org/ docid/5005520f2.htm U N H C R > G P P AC T I O N 6 : E S TA B L I S H I N G S TAT E L E S S N E S S D E T E R M I N AT I O N P R O C E D U R E S 3