4.3 The UK and the 1954 Convention As explained in Chapter 1, the UK is a party to the 1954 Convention. The Treaty’s object and purpose is ��to assure stateless persons the widest possible exercise of these fundamental rights and freedoms” and “to regulate and improve the status of stateless persons by an international agreement”.113 The International Law Commission considers that the definition of a stateless person in Article 1(1) of the Convention constitutes customary international law.114 It provides that a stateless person is a “person who is not considered as a national by any State under the operation of its law”. The obligations in this treaty relate to those who fall within that definition. The UK entered three reservations to the 1954 Convention, seeking to qualify the legal obligations that arose in specific areas. The first two reservations are not relevant to any of the issues raised in the research.115 The third is relevant to limitations on stateless persons accessing National Health Service treatment, and is discussed in Chapter 5. The UK has a dualist system of law that limits the extent to which international treaty provisions can be relied upon in proceedings in domestic courts, unless provisions of domestic law either directly incorporate international law or are interpreted to have that effect. The status of the 1954 Convention in UK domestic law has changed over time, which has particularly affected the way in which stateless persons who are in the UK are treated by immigration law. Those changes, and their consequences, will be examined. 4.4 The history of the status of the 1954 Convention in domestic law and the treatment of stateless persons in UK immigration law and policy 4.4.1 The Immigration Rules The Secretary of State for the Home Department is responsible for exercising powers relating to immigration control. Those functions are carried out by an executive agency called the UK Border Agency in accordance with the Immigration Rules. Between 25 January 1973 and March 1980, the Immigration Rules116 provided that “where a person is stateless or a refugee full account is to be taken of the provisions of the relevant 66 113 1954 Convention, Preamble. 114 International Law Commission, Commentary on the Draft Articles on Diplomatic Protection 2006, available at: http://untreaty.un.org/ilc/texts/instruments/english/commentaries/9_8_2006.pdf, p. 49. 115 UNHCR, Declarations and Reservations to the 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, 20 Nov. 2006, www.unhcr.org/416114164.html. These reservations were to Articles 8 and 9 (exempting stateless persons from emergency measures) and to Article 25 (relating to “administrative assistance” for stateless persons to facilitate the delivery of documents and certificates). 116 Statement of Changes of Immigration Rules for Control of Persons after Entry, EEC and other nonCommonwealth Nationals (HC82), Laid before Parliament on 25 Feb. 1973, para. 56. Mapping statelessness