2016] The Protection of Stateless Persons in Australian Law 405 by the Australian government to the UNHCR that it would ‘better identify stateless persons and assess their claims’ and ensure that ‘stateless persons are treated no less favourably than people with an identified nationality’,14 key treaty obligations have yet to be implemented in domestic law. While individual cases have sometimes highlighted the plight of stateless persons in Australia, such as the infamous case of Mr Al-Kateb,15 and the more recent plight of ‘baby Ferouz’,16 there remains a significant lacuna in understanding and analysis of the issue. In this article, we present the first comprehensive analysis of the state of statelessness in Australian law and the reasons why the creation of a statelessness status determination procedure is essential to ensure that Australia complies with its international legal obligations. We begin by briefly outlining the meaning of statelessness and its consequences for those without protection in Part II, before turning to an overview of Australia’s relevant international obligations in Part III. In Part IV we outline what is currently known about the number of stateless persons in Australia. In Part V we turn to consider the protection of stateless persons in Australian law in light of obligations under both the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees on from Al-Kateb: Statelessness in the Australian Context,’ (2014) 1(1) IAFOR Journal of Politics, Economics and Law <http://iafor.org/archives/journals/journal-ofpolitics/Statelessness-matters.pdf>, which considers ‘how concepts about stateless communities might develop within the Refugee and Migration Review Tribunals’; Equal Rights Trust, Unravelling Anomaly: Detention, Discrimination and the Protection Needs of Stateless Persons (2010) 110–39 <http://www.equalrightstrust.org/ertdocumentbank/ UNRAVELLING%20ANOMALY%20small%20file.pdf>, which discusses the detention of stateless persons in Australia. For an interesting account of statelessness as a ‘forgotten human rights crisis’, see generally Lindsey N Kingston, ‘“A Forgotten Human Rights Crisis”: Statelessness and Issue (Non)Emergence’ (2013) 14 Human Rights Review 73. 14 UNHCR, Pledges 2011: Ministerial Intergovernmental Event on Refugees and Stateless Persons (Geneva, Palais des Nations, 7–8 December 2011) (2012) 49. The government also foreshadowed such a procedure when it introduced the Migration Amendment (Complementary Protection) Bill 2009 (Cth) into Parliament, and in late 2010 when it released an issues paper affirming the need for such a procedure: see Commonwealth, Parliamentary Debates, House of Representatives, 9 September 2009, 8991–2 (Laurie Ferguson); Onshore Protection Consultative Group, ‘Statelessness’ (10 November 2010); Onshore Protection Consultative Group, ‘Statelessness: Extract of Issues Paper’ (4 November 2010). 15 Al-Kateb v Godwin (2004) 219 CLR 562. 16 Plaintiff B9/2014 v Minister for Immigration [2014] FCCA 2348 (15 October 2014), affd (2014) 227 FCR 494. See also Nick Olle, ‘The Law and the Little Boy’, The Global Mail (online), 11 December 2013 <https://law.anu.edu.au/sites/all/files/coast/ the_law_and_the_little_boy_the_global_mail.pdf>.