2015] LIFE AFTER LIMBO 357 While the refugee and statelessness protection frameworks were born of similar concerns and track each other closely in the guarantees they provide, the international community has received them in very different manners since they were opened for ratification. The Refugee Convention was initially limited both temporally and geographically in its scope,18 but was followed by a 1967 Protocol, which eliminated those limitations.19 Since that time, a virtual consensus has formed among the international community with regard to the importance of ensuring international protection for refugees, reflected in the fact that 145 states are parties to the Refugee Convention.20 Moreover, many states have taken seriously these obligations and enacted them in the form of national legislation to provide asylum to refugees.21 Where the international protection regime for refugees has seen tremendous success over the last sixty years, the parallel regime for the protection of stateless persons has languished. Indeed, it is only somewhat recently that stateless persons have once again made their way into the humanitarian agenda of the international community. Specifically, with the fall of the Soviet Union followed closely by the dissolution of the Former Yugoslavia, the global community was forced to recognize the persistent humanitarian needs of stateless persons. These turbulent shifts from large socialist republics to substantial numbers of independent successor states were accompanied by efforts to consolidate national identities. One manner in which this identity formation was carried out was through the drafting of nationality laws that defined who would become a citizen of the newly independent nations. Persons were excluded from these new nationalities for a variety of reasons, and many of them became stateless.22 This increased visibility of stateless persons and their struggle led to a renewed recognition of the importance of the international regime for the protection of stateless persons. The UNHCR currently estimates that there are at least ten million stateless persons in the world today.23 While this is not as substantial as nearly 17 million refugees,24 the magnitude of this problem certainly calls for a 18. Refugee Convention, supra note 14, at art. 1.B. 19. Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, Jan. 31, 1967, 606 U.N.T.S. 267. 20. See Refugee Convention, supra note 14. 21. See Law No. 26.165, Nov. 8, 2006, B.O. 1 (Arg.), available at http://www.refworld.org/docid/ 46d559e92.html; Asylgesetz 2005 [2005 Asylum Act] Federal Law Gazette [FGL] No. 100/2005 (Austria), available at http://www.refworld.org/docid/46adc62c2.html; Act No. 493/1999, May 1, 1999 (Fin.), available at http://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6b59510.html; Legge 30 luglio 2002, n.189 (It.), available at http://www.refworld.org/docid/3fd9cd6d4.html. 22. See Kuric and Others v. Slovenia (No. 26828/06), Eur. Ct. H.R. (2010) (finding human rights violations against persons who were left stateless after the dissolution of the Yugoslavia who later had their records removed from the population register, leading to their loss of residence), available at http://www.statelessness.eu/sites/www.statelessness.eu/files/attachments/resources/ECHR_GC_ Kuric%20v%20Slovenia_June2012.pdf. 23. See INSTITUTE FOR STATELESSNESS & INCLUSION, supra note 7, at 55. 24. See Facts and Figures about Refugees, UNHCR, available at http://www.unhcr.org.uk/aboutus/key-facts-and-figures.html (last visited Jan. 21, 2016). Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2796321