Facilitated naturalization of stateless persons Provision 1. A person currently residing in State X who has been determined to be stateless by a competent authority, may apply to become a national of State X.” Comments The 1954 Convention on contains an obligation for States to “facilitate the assimilation and naturalisation of stateless persons.”68 In practice, this would require States to have robust procedures by which they might determine whether a person on their territory is stateless.69 States which determine that an individual is stateless should expedite their naturalization proceedings. This would mean that, once an individual is determined to be stateless, any residency requirements should be minimized or waived, and that any income or language requirements that States may impose on other applicants should be exempted for stateless applicants. Laws that impose onerous documentation requirements should also be waived for stateless persons, as they are more likely to not have obtained, for example, a birth certificate. Application There are relatively few States world-wide which have adopted dedicated statelessness determination procedures. One State which has recently implemented such a procedure is Moldova. Moldova’s law contains substantial procedural guarantees, such as the right to an interpreter and legal aid, and explicitly grants the applicant a right to stay in the country during the procedure.70 It also takes into account the difficulties inherent in proving statelessness, and as such, the burden of proof is shared between the applicant and the relevant authority, which may take steps to collect documents to substantiate the application from countries with which the applicant has a link.71 This effective statelessness determination procedure is an important step in facilitating the eventual naturalization of stateless persons. 32