2016] The Protection of Stateless Persons in Australian Law 409 deprivation of nationality, the dissolution, separation or succession of states, entrenched barriers to birth registration and other civil registration processes, administrative oversights, the renunciation of one nationality without first acquiring another citizenship, or denationalisation.39 A person can also be rendered stateless through marriage or the ‘dissolution of a marriage between couples from different countries’, or by being born to a stateless person.40 Migration can also result in statelessness (or a risk of statelessness) for refugees and irregular migrants without documents who lose their ties or proof of nationality in relation to their country of nationality, and are unable to acquire the nationality of their host state.41 While the causes of statelessness vary widely, the consequences are often very similar for those affected by this phenomenon. In Hannah Arendt’s words, they are denied ‘a right to have rights’.42 Stateless persons (and those at risk of becoming stateless) often live in a ‘legal limbo’43 characterised by vulnerability, insecurity and marginalisation.44 They often have (at best) limited access to basic human rights such as education, regularised employment, housing and health services.45 They typically face a heightened risk of exploitation, arrest and arbitrary detention because they cannot prove who 39 See generally Laura van Waas, Nationality Matters: Statelessness under International Law (Intersentia, 2008); Refugee Status, UN Doc PPLA/2014/01, 6, 14; Weis, above n 24, 115–34; UNHCR, ‘Gender Equality Background Note’, above n 38. On denationalisation see Matthew J Gibney, ‘The Deprivation of Citizenship in the United Kingdom: A Brief History’ (2014) 28 Journal of Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Law 326. 40 UNHCR, Self-Study Module on Statelessness (2012) 19. 41 Ibid 26–7. 42 Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1951) 294. See also Alison Kesby, The Right to Have Rights: Citizenship, Humanity, and International Law (Oxford University Press, 2012). 43 Harry J Kits, ‘Betwixt and between: Refugees and Stateless Persons in Limbo’ (2005) 22(2) Refuge 3, 5. 44 UNHCR, Handbook on Protection of Stateless Persons, above n 20, 1. The important work of Lynch and Blitz has highlighted that many stateless persons effectively ‘struggle to exist’: Maureen Lynch and Brad K Blitz, ‘Summary and Conclusions’ in Brad K Blitz and Maureen Lynch (eds), Statelessness and Citizenship: A Comparative Study on the Benefits of Nationality (Edward Elgar, 2011) 194, 195. However, it is acknowledged that the situation can vary widely: in South East Asia the situation is quite different as between Thailand, Brunei and Singapore on the one hand and Myanmar on the other. We are grateful to Nicholas Oakeshott for this insight. 45 See Kristy A Belton, ‘Statelessness: A Matter of Human Rights’ in Rhoda E Howard-Hassmann and Margaret Walton-Roberts (eds), The Human Right to Citizenship: A Slippery Concept (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015) 31, 36–40; Marilyn Achiron and Radha Govil, Nationality and Statelessness: Handbook for Parliamentarians No 22 (Inter-Parliamentary Union/UNHCR, 2nd ed, 2014) 3.