UNHCR’s efforts focus on providing technical and advisory services to states and on encouraging states to find equitable solutions.125 4.1 Definition of a Stateless Person and Effect of Recognition (Legal Status) A “stateless person” is defined by the 1954 Stateless Persons Convention as: a person who is not considered as a national by any State under the operation of its law.126 The 1954 Stateless Persons Convention definition is strictly legal in the sense that the only defining criterion is recognition under the law of a person as either a national or a non-national; i.e., the latter are de jure stateless persons. The 1961 Stateless Persons Convention, however, recognizes that de facto stateless persons, i.e., persons who do not enjoy effective protection by their home country, are also in need of assistance and protection, even though they are still legal or formal holders of a nationality. These two categories of stateless persons are defined by the United Nations as follows: Stateless persons de jure: Persons who are not nationals of any state, either because at birth or subsequently they were not given any nationality, or because during their lifetime they lost their nationality and did not acquire a new one. Stateless persons de facto: Persons who, having left the country of which they were nationals, no longer enjoy the protection and assistance of their national authorities, either because these authorities refuse to grant them assistance and protection, or because they themselves renounce the assistance and protection of the countries of which they are nationals.127 De facto stateless persons were not included within the scope of the 1954 Stateless Persons Convention. The drafters of the Convention assumed that this group would automatically qualify as refugees protected under the 1951 Refugee Convention because they were not granted effective protection by their home country.128 A recommendation that such persons be protected was, however, inserted into the Final Act: Each contracting state, when it recognizes as valid the reasons for which a person has renounced the protection of the State of which he is a national, 125 UNHCR, “UNHCR’s Activities in the Field of Statelessness: Progress Report,” June 3, 2003, para. 7, http://www.unhcr.org/3edf598a4.html. See also UNHCR, “UNHCR’s Activities in the Field of Statelessness: Progress Report,” June 30, 2005, http://www.unhcr.org/42a553922.html; UNHCR, “State Action on Statelessness;” and UNHCR, “Stateless - UNHCR Actions,” accessed May 7, 2014, http://www.unhcr.org/pages/49c3646c16a.html. 126 UNHCR, “The 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons,” Article 1(1). The definition is considered customary international law, thus it is also binding on states not party to the 1954 Stateless Convention. 127 UN Economic and Social Council, “A Study of Statelessness,” 8–9. 128 Batchelor, “Stateless Persons,” 248. The Palestinian Refugee Problem: An Overview 21