Background This Good Practices Paper complements the Handbook by presenting a brief overview of the key elements of SDPs and illustrating these with good practices from selected countries that are among a growing number to have established such procedures to date. The first Good Practices Paper on establishing statelessness determination procedures was published in 2016. In this second edition, the Good Practices Paper has been expanded and updated to reflect recent developments, most notably the establishment of SDPs in an additional nine countries. The table in the Annex has been updated and provides an overview of current practice in most of the countries that have a mechanism in place to identify stateless persons. The Handbook remains UNHCR’s authoritative guidance on the issue and should be disseminated and cited as such. The international legal basis for the creation of Statelessness determination procedures States Parties to the 1954 Convention need to be able to identify stateless persons within their jurisdiction in order to provide them with appropriate treatment in compliance with the Convention. Establishing a procedure or mechanism to identify stateless persons is thus an implicit obligation of the 1954 Convention. The 1954 Convention establishes the international legal definition of a “stateless person” but is silent on how States are to determine whether an individual is stateless. Establishing an SDP is the most efficient means for States Parties to the 1954 Convention to identify the beneficiaries of that Convention. 4 U N H C R > G P P AC T I O N 6 : E S TA B L I S H I N G S TAT E L E S S N E S S D E T E R M I N AT I O N P R O C E D U R E S