The Conference did not define the term “de facto stateless”, although it can be inferred from the language of the Resolution in the Final Act that de facto stateless persons have a nationality that is “ineffective”. It should be noted also that the Executive Secretary of the Conference referred to the definition of de facto statelessness given in the Study of Statelessness,83 and the Chairman of the Conference simply said that de facto statelessness arose “in most cases from a decision by the person concerned that he no longer wished to seek the assistance of the country whose nationality he possessed”.84 The delegate of Belgium said in introducing the draft Resolution that it was “intended to draw … attention … to the case of persons who were not de jure stateless, but who no longer enjoyed the protection of the country whose nationality they nominally possessed.”85 Paul Weis also wrote in his private capacity in 1962 that a de facto stateless person is normally regarded as a person who does possess a nationality, but does not possess the protection of his State of nationality and who resides outside the territory of that State, i.e. a person whose nationality is ineffective.86 The Conference records suggest that the delegates were principally concerned about the situation of de facto stateless persons who are refugees.87 However, the Belgian delegate also gave the example of a Belgian woman who married a de facto stateless refugee, saying that: In such cases, the husband was regarded as stateless de jure, in order to allow the wife to retain her Belgian nationality88 and Belgian legislation took account of the status of a person who was stateless de facto. Thus, a Belgian woman who would normally have acquired her husband’s nationality, retained Belgian nationality on marrying a person regarded as a refugee, because the view of the authorities was that otherwise she would have no effective nationality.89 One delegate, that of the United Kingdom, may also have had a broader category of persons in mind when he said: cases of de facto statelessness were both numerous and diverse and difficult to establish. The Convention dealt with the rights, strictly speaking, of easily identifiable persons. However much one might wish to ensure that as many persons as possible should acquire effective nationality, he doubted whether the detailed provisions of the Convention, even when given a generous interpretation, could be applied in the case of persons who were stateless de facto. No one could say at a person’s birth whether or not he would enjoy the protection of his government in later years. It was also conceivable that a person having dual nationality lost one nationality without it being known whether he would be refused 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 As noted in section 1.2 above, the Study of Statelessness defines de facto stateless persons as: “persons who, having left the country of which they were nationals, no longer enjoy the protection and assistance of their national authorities, either because these authorities refuse to grant them assistance and protection, or because they themselves renounce the assistance and protection of the countries of which they are nationals.” A/CONF.9/C.1/SR.19, p. 9. Ibid., p. 8. Paul Weis, “The United Nations Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, 1961”, op. cit., p. 1086. For the full discussion on de facto statelessness by the Conference see: A/CONF.9/L.48, “Belgium: Draft Resolution”, 13 April 1959; A/CONF.9/11, “Observations transmitted by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees”, 30 June 1961, para.’s 5-7; A/CONF.9/C.1/SR.19, 24 April 1961, pp. 8-10; A/CONF.9/SR.23, pp. 12-14. A/CONF.9/C.1/SR.19, p. 8. A/CONF.9/SR.23, p. 13. 24