Existing Statelessness determination procedure Overview of existing statelessness determination procedure Only about twenty States worldwide have established dedicated SDPs. France has the oldest mechanism, one that has recognized and protected stateless persons since the 1950s. Italy, Hungary, Latvia and Spain followed suit some decades later. Some States have established SDPs through legislative or sub-legislative acts, while others do not provide a specific legal basis for the procedure. There is a growing interest among States in establishing SDPs. At UNHCR’s December 2011 Ministerial Meeting to commemorate the 60th and 50th anniversaries of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, respectively, ten States pledged to establish SDPs. These were Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Costa Rica, Georgia, Moldova, Peru, the Philippines, Uruguay, and the United States of America. Hungary pledged to improve its existing procedure.5 Moldova became the first State to fulfill its pledge, adopting an SDP at the end of 2011. The SDP is established through legislation and as one of the most detailed, serves as an example for other States to follow. In 2012, Georgia and the Philippines fulfilled their pledges to establish SDPs; they were followed by Costa Rica in 2016, Brazil in 2017 and Uruguay in 2018. Nine countries that did not pledge to introduce SDPs but have since done so are: the United Kingdom in 2013, Kosovo (S/RES/1244 (1999)) in 2015, Turkey in 2016, Bulgaria and Ecuador in 2017, Montenegro and Paraguay in 2018, and Panama and Argentina in 2019. In the context of the High-Level Segment on Statelessness that took place in October 2019 a further 21 States pledged to establish SDPs by the end of the #IBelong Campaign in 2024.6 Ukraine, while not having submitted a pledge at the High-Level Segment, established an SDP in June 2020. 5 A summary of pledges is presented in UNHCR, Pledges 2011: Ministerial Intergovernmental Event on Refugees and Stateless Persons (Geneva, Palais des Nations, 7-8 December 2011), available at: http://www.unhcr.org/commemorations/ Pledges2011-preview-compilation-analysis.pdf. 6 The full list of pledges made at the 2019 High-Level Segment on Statelessness is available at: https://www.unhcr.org/ ibelong/results-of-the-high-level-segment-on-statelessness/ 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 5