SOLVING STATELESSNESS Preface Working in the field of statelessness today is a great privilege. After fighting hard to bring the issue out of the shadows, the small but growing community of people who have taken up the cause have found courage in the momentum achieved – both with respect to putting statelessness on the map and making real progress to resolve situations in a number of countries. A sense of optimism fuels the statelessness agenda today, epitomised by the bold ambition of UNHCR’s #IBelong Campaign. A sense of generosity also permeates our collective interactions on statelessness, which are increasingly characterised by a set of diverse actors all willing to share their knowledge and ideas in order to move the issue forward. This collection of essays is a reflection of these attributes of the field at large. Every contributor set aside time in his or her demanding work schedule to share important insights into contemporary challenges and opportunities related to “solving” statelessness. The result is a thought-provoking publication that offers a valuable window onto the authors’ particular areas of work or expertise. While this project began as an effort to draw together some of the lessons from the rich interactions between scholars and practitioners at the First Global Forum on Statelessness, convened in the Hague in 2014, it has since grown into something quite different and, we hope, more valuable. Rather than serving primarily as a record of discussions held in the past, it is now focused on the future, and specifically on promising directions ahead in the pursuit of solutions. We would like to thank all of the contributors for joining us on this journey and for their dedication to the issue more broadly. We would also like to extend a special thank you to Peggy Brett, whose steady and painstaking support in the final copy-editing stage played a vital role in getting us successfully to the finishing line. Last but not least, we’d like to extend our very profound gratitude to our mentors in the field past and present, as well as to our families, whose endless support and understanding made this work possible. Laura van Waas and Melanie J. Khanna October 2016 1