THE PROBLEM OF STATELESSNESS IN UKRAINE AND THE WAYS OF ADDRESSING IT receive social benefits, disability benefits, or pensions, or the impossibility of registering newborn children of a stateless person, etc. Contradictions between the national and international legislation on statelessness In addition to the above-mentioned fact that the national legislation fails to reflect the stateless persons’ rights provided for by the 1954 Convention, some regulatory legal acts substantially limit event the existing small scope of rights. Among such regulations, it is worth mentioning the Family Code of Ukraine that contains a discriminatory provision (Article 212)7 depriving stateless persons of the right to adopt children, and the Criminal Code that allows foreigners and stateless persons having committed crimes outside Ukraine and staying in its territory to be extradited to a foreign state for criminal prosecution and committal for trial (Article 10, part 2)8. The above-mentioned provision deprives the stateless persons permanently residing in Ukraine of the right to be protected from expulsion under article 31 of the 1954 Convention. The Code of Administrative Offences of Ukraine imposes administrative liability for living in the territory of Ukraine without a passport, with an invalid passport, or without registration of the place of residence or stay, thereby punishing such persons for the fact that they cannot obtain documents through no fault of their own, exposing them to possible abuse on the part of law-enforcement bodies, and making them victims of corruption. The legislation on foreigners and stateless persons9 provides for a procedure of administrative detention for persons who stay unlawfully in the country, which in turn creates risks for undocumented stateless persons, putting them at risk of detention for subsequent removal. Undocumented persons can include stateless persons and those at risk of statelessness who cannot obtain identity papers not through their negligence but because of: 1) legislative gaps that prevent such persons from obtaining documents; 2) lack of a statelessness status determination procedure, which also denies them the opportunity to be documented. Access to rights of stateless under 1951 Refugee Convention: by-law implementation By-laws include some requirements that complicate access to Ukrainian citizenship and sometimes make acquisition impossible. For example, when a person granted refugee status in Ukraine lodges an application for naturalization, the “Procedure for proceedings on applications and claims concerning citizenship 7 http://zakon2.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/2947-14 8 http://zakon2.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/2341-14 9 http://zakon2.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/80731-10 12