circumstances that have been provided for in the 1954 Convention. If the person’s identity has not been established, this may be indicated in the travel document (Chapter 2, Section 8). It has been confirmed in Swedish case law that when a person is both a refugee and stateless, the person is entitled to a travel document in accordance with the Refugee Convention instead of a travel document in accordance with the 1954 Convention, as the travel document issued pursuant to the Refugee Convention is more beneficial.186 The provisions on travel documents in these two Conventions are to a large extent identical, though there are certain differences. A travel document issued in accordance with the 1954 Convention is valid for at least three months whereas the travel document issued in accordance with the Refugee Convention shall be valid for at least one year, pursuant to paragraph 5 of the schedules to both Conventions.187 3.5 Conclusions and recommendations The situation in which stateless persons may find themselves, and the protections to which they are entitled, have received relatively little attention in Sweden. Although Sweden has been a State Party to the 1954 Convention since 1965, numerous provisions in the Convention have not been transformed into the Swedish legislation, or applied in practice. The definition of a stateless person set out in Article 1(1) of the 1954 Convention has not been transformed into the national legislation, though statelessness is referred to in several legal acts and in relevant Government Bills. While an individual can be recorded or registered as stateless by the SMA in its Register, and by the Swedish Tax Agency in the Population Register, the lack of a definition of a stateless person in national law, coupled with the lack of common guidelines with criteria and procedural standards for its application, leads to a risk that an individual’s citizenship status is assessed differently by the respective authorities. It can also lead to a situation where a child’s or adult’s statelessness is not properly identified and determined, and the individual consequently loses his or her ability to acquire Swedish citizenship by notification or naturalization, at a certain point in time or indefinitely; considering the relatively high number of children born in Sweden who are registered as having an “unknown” nationality (see Table 9 in Section 4.3.1.1 below), this is a concern and a factor that hampers the affected individuals’ ability to enjoy rights under the statelessness Conventions. UNHCR therefore recommends that the definition of a stateless person set out in the 1954 Convention, and which is part of customary international law, is transformed into national law, and that guidelines be developed to ensure a consistent application of the definition by the SMA and Swedish Tax Agency, respectively. The same recommendation is made in respect of the category persons with “unknown” nationality. This would help ensure that, where assessment of an individual’s statelessness is taking place as part of establishing an individual’s identity during immigration and civil, including birth registration processes, the criteria for considering someone as stateless or of “unknown” nationality, and the application of these, are harmonized, known and consistently applied across the different authorities involved. UNHCR also recommends exploring the possibility of establishing a system which enables a synchronization of recordings and updates relating to a person’s citizenship status in the respective registers, to ensure that an update in, for example, the Register of the SMA, is reflected in the Population Register. Furthermore, the assessments of the potential statelessness of an applicant for an asylum or immigration permit, or citizenship, that are conducted today are not legally binding and have no independent legal 54 186 Migration Appeal Court, MIG 2009: 6, 9 March 2009. 187 UNHCR, The Refugee Convention, 1951: The Travaux préparatoires analysed with a Commentary by Dr. Paul Weis, 1990, available at: http://www.refworld.org/docid/53e1dd114.html and UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons. Its History and Interpretation, 1997, available at: http://www.refworld.org/docid/4785f03d2.html. M A P P I N G S TAT E L E S S N E S S I N S W E D E N