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[Vol 40:401
that 70 states will have a statelessness status determination procedure in
place by 2024.252
While these models vary, ‘best practice’ guidance is provided by the
UNHCR’s Handbook on Protection of Stateless Persons253 and the European
Network on Statelessness’s Guidelines on Good Practices.254 These set out
practical guidance that accords with international standards to assist states to
create principled, effective domestic procedures that accord with the terms
and objectives of the 1954 Convention. Below we outline some key features
that any Australian model should incorporate.
A Single Procedure
Statelessness status determination in Australia should form part of a single
asylum procedure.255 Just as decision-makers first assess applicants against the
stateless determination procedures, while Austria undertook to review its implementation of
the 1954 Convention on the basis of UNHCR guidance: UNHCR, Pledges 2011, above n 14,
50–2 (Austria), 53–4 (Belgium), 56–7 (Brazil), 105 (Peru), 126–30 (United States), 131 (Uruguay). However, not all have done so to date. For instance, Belgium has a judicial process for
determining statelessness, but despite its 2011 pledge has not created a legislative procedure:
Office of the Commissioner General for Refugees and Stateless Persons (Belgium), Stateless
Persons (2015) <http://www.cgra.be/en/stateless-persons>. Other countries that have recommended or are contemplating such a procedure include the Kyrgyz Republic, the Netherlands and the countries comprising the Economic Community of West African States:
UNHCR Representation in the Kyrgyz Republic, Concluding Statement of the Fifth High-Level
Steering Meeting on the Prevention and Reduction of Statelessness in the Kyrgyz Republic (27
November 2014) [6]; Government of the Netherlands, Dutch Nationality:
Statelessness <https://www.government.nl/topics/dutch-nationality/contents/statelessness>;
Economic Community of West African States/UNHCR, Abidjan Declaration of Ministers of
ECOWAS Member States on Eradication of Statelessness (25 February 2015) [16]. Kosovo
now has an SSD process, and there are ‘limited provision[s] existing in Slovakia, Switzerland
and Turkey, as well as procedures in the pipeline in other countries such as
Greece’: Chris Nash, ‘The EU’s Response to Statelessness — Where Next After Luxembourg?’
on
European
Network
on
Statelessness
Blog
(21
April
2016)
<http://www.statelessness.eu/blog/eu-response-statelessness-where-next-afterluxembourg?mc_cid=50a79394da&mc_eid=f52f66b0dd#sthash.WHTwhDRd.dpuf>.
252
See UNHCR, Global Action Plan, above n 35, 16.
253
UNHCR, Handbook on Protection of Stateless Persons, above n 20.
254
Gyulai, ‘ENS Guidelines’, above n 136. See also UNHCR, Geneva Conclusions, above n 136;
UNHCR, Prato Conclusions, above n 136. The significance of these developments in a relatively short space of time should not be underestimated. In 2008, van Waas lamented the
absence of any guidelines for identifying stateless persons: van Waas, Nationality Matters,
above n 39, 403–4.
255
‘Statelessness determination has been delegated to the asylum authority in France, Moldova,
Spain, the Philippines and the United Kingdom’: Gyulai, ‘ENS Guidelines’, above n 136, 9. See
also Batchelor, ‘The 1954 Convention’, above n 23, 38–40.