412 Melbourne University Law Review [Vol 40:401 an active member of the Drafting Committee on the Definition of the Term ‘Stateless Person’.58 The 1954 Convention was adopted on 23 September 1954 and came into force on 6 June 1960 (with its sixth ratification). Australia acceded to it in December 1973 without reservation59 — the same day that it ratified the 1961 Convention (focused on addressing the underlying problem of statelessness itself). However, whereas the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol60 enjoy widespread ratification with 147 states parties, the 1954 Convention still has only 89 states parties.61 The object and purpose of the 1954 Convention is to ‘regulate and improve the status of stateless persons by an international agreement’ and to secure for them ‘the widest possible exercise of [their] fundamental rights and freedoms’.62 The UNHCR observes that the 1954 Convention remains the ‘only international treaty aimed specifically at regulating the standards of treatment for stateless persons’ and, therefore, ‘is of critical importance in ensuring the protection of this vulnerable group.’63 The 1954 Convention provides an almost identical legal status to stateless persons as that afforded to refugees under the Refugee Convention. This is perhaps unsurprising given that the drafters used, inter alia, the provisions of the Refugee Convention as the basis of their discussions.64 Thus, it sets out a broad range of civil, economic, social and cultural rights divided into four categories: juridical status, gainful employment, welfare, and administrative 58 The Drafting Committee comprised the President of the Conference and representatives of Australia, Belgium, Brazil, the Federal Republic of Germany, France, Israel and the United Kingdom: ibid 120. 59 UN Treaty Collection, 4. Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, 1 <https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/MTDSG/Volume%20I/Chapter%20V/V-4.en.pdf>. 60 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, opened for signature 31 January 1967, 606 UNTS 267 (entered into force 4 October 1967). 61 As at September 2016. 62 1954 Convention Preamble. 63 UNHCR, Handbook on Protection of Stateless Persons, above n 20, 3 [3]. 64 Recall that the Ad Hoc Committee prepared a draft protocol that in essence applied the provisions of the Refugee Convention mutatis mutandis to stateless persons: see above n 53 and accompanying text. Batchelor suggests that the drafters thought they were not authorised to make any additions to the draft protocol, and furthermore ‘that it would be wise not to try to amend the articles of the Geneva Convention, but to restrict itself to deciding whether or not to insert them in the instrument on the status of stateless persons’: Conference of Plenipotentiaries on the Status of Stateless Persons, Summary Record of the Fifth Meeting, UN Doc E/CONF.17/SR.5 (29 September 1954) 3, quoted in Batchelor, ‘Stateless Persons’, above n 21, 245.