PRACTICAL GUIDE ON NATIONALITY Renunciation of nationality Renunciation of nationality refers to the voluntary loss of nationality initiated by a declaration or application by the person to their national authorities informing them of their intention to give up their nationality. Stateless person ‘[A] person who is not considered to be a national by any State under the operation of its law’ ( 15). Third country A country that is not a Member State of the European Union (EU) ( 16). Indeterminate or ‘doubtful’ nationality Indeterminate (or ‘doubtful’) nationality is not a type of nationality. It is an expression that rather conveys the idea of a lack of substantiation of nationality. 1.2. The role and significance of nationality (or lack thereof) in international protection procedures 1.2.1. The impact on the examination of the need for international protection The identification of the applicant’s nationality (or lack of nationality) is a key element of the assessment of the need for international protection. A need for international protection may be established if the applicant has a well-founded fear of persecution or faces a real risk of serious harm in their country of nationality (or habitual residence, for stateless applicants) ( 17). International protection is a substitute to national protection: a person is in need of international protection precisely because they cannot find or access effective protection in their country of nationality. When the applicant is stateless, the need for international protection is assessed by examining whether they can return or not to their country of former habitual residence because of a well-founded fear or real risk ( 18). (15) Article 1(1) of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly, Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, United Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 360, p. 117, 28 September 1954; Article 3(15) APR and Article 2(5) screening regulation. (16) Although rare in practice, an EU citizen can apply for international protection status in another Member State of the EU (Member State) under the UN General Assembly, Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, Geneva, 28 July 1951, United Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 189, p. 137 and Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, 31 January 1967, United Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 606, p. 267 (referred to as the Refugee Convention for the purposes of this guide but EU asylum legislation and CJEU case-law refers to it as ‘the Geneva Convention’). For this case, some Member States have adopted a specific protocol where they set out a number of specific circumstances in which the application by another EU national may be taken into consideration or declared admissible and therefore be examined by a Member State. See Consolidated version of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, Protocol (No 24) on Asylum for Nationals of Member States of the European Union (OJ 115, 09/05/2008). See also EUAA, Qualification For International Protection – Judicial analysis, Second edition, January 2023. (17) See the definition of a refugee and a person eligible for subsidiary protection in Article 3(5) and (6) QR. (18) See the definition of a refugee and a person eligible for subsidiary protection laid down in Article 3(5) and (6) QR read in combination with Articles 7 and 8 QR on the actors of protection and on the internal protection alternative. 11