The Role of UNHCR in Addressing Statelessness UNHCR has been involved in statelessness issues and with stateless individuals since its inception in 1950. The organization is mandated by the United Nations to protect refugees and to help them find solutions to their plight and many of the refugees assisted throughout the years have also been stateless.16 Indeed, over the past several decades, the link between the loss or denial of national protection and the loss or denial of nationality has been well established. It is now generally understood that nationality helps to prevent involuntary and coerced displacements of persons.17 UNHCR’s role in addressing stateless issues and assisting stateless individuals has ex- panded with time. The U.N. General Assembly has recognized UNHCR as the U.N. institution with an international protection mandate for stateless persons18 and has elaborated on the organization’s responsibilities on these issues,19 as has UNHCR’s own governing body, the Executive Committee of the High Commissioner’s Programme.20 The UNHCR mandate set out in these resolutions is universal in scope and does not limit UNHCR’s activities to States Parties to either the 1954 Convention or the 1961 Convention. UNHCR’s statelessness mandate covers all situations of statelessness. In 2006, the General Assembly urged UNHCR to continue to work “in regard to identifying stateless persons, preventing and reducing statelessness, and protecting stateless persons”.21 © UNHCR / J. Tanner Today, UNHCR’s efforts concerning statelessness are focused on four key areas: identification, prevention, reduction, and protection. Children make drawings as part of a protection workshop run by Plan International on behalf of UNHCR in Elias Piña, Dominican Republic. Many of these children, living in impoverished communities called bateyes, are at risk of becoming stateless. 8 The identification of statelessness includes continued efforts to identify populations which are stateless or of undetermined nationality; improving collection and sharing of statistical data on these populations; and undertaking and sharing research on the causes, scope, and Citizens of Nowhere: