38.2 (7) TEMPROSA.DOCX38.2 (7) TEMPROSA.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2020] STATELESSNESS AS RHETORIC 1/16/2021 12:59 PM 251 need to adapt existing treaties to postwar conditions and new developments in international law. 48 The HRC requested that the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) initiate action, and the ECOSOC requested the Secretary-General undertake a study on it. Improving the position of stateless persons "require[d] their integration in the framework of international law, which, by tradition, has dealt with cases of foreigners possessing nationality." 49 The UN Secretary-General undertook a study on the situation of "stateless persons" even though statelessness was still ill-defined. 50 The UN's 1949 study constituted a step towards creating an international regime for protecting the unprotected. 51 The study recommended providing stateless persons with status that would ensure their enjoyment of "rights necessary to enable them to lead an existence worthy of human beings, and . . . [provide] adequate international protection." 52 Eventually, States came up with two different treaties for refugees and stateless persons. 53 Drafters of the 1954 Statelessness Convention believed that States could fix statelessness through the liberal State system, which was supposed to ensure universal rights and shared development. 54 Most importantly, for our purposes, drafters debated whether to include a statelessness definition in the first place. 55 When States initially drafted a protocol for stateless persons, they did not intend to establish the meaning of statelessness and their draft did not contain a definition. 56 The draft protocol reflected a State-preferred arrangement, leaving States to decide who does and does not qualify as stateless. 57 Even as States drafted a treaty on statelessness separate from the protocol, delegates could not 48. NEHEMIAH ROBINSON, CONVENTION RELATING TO THE STATUS OF STATELESS PERSONS: ITS HISTORY AND INTERPRETATION (1995), https://www.oas.org/dil/1954_Convention_relating_to_the_Status_of_Stateless_Persons.pdf (last visited Apr. 15, 2019). 49. Id. 50. Id. 51. LAURA VAN WAAS, NATIONALITY MATTERS: STATELESSNESS UNDER INTERNATIONAL LAW 66 (2008). The study is proof of the shared history and concern of the international community. The study refers to refugees as stateless persons: de jure stateless if they had been deprived of nationality by their country of origin and de facto stateless if they did not enjoy the protection and assistance of national authorities. 52. United Nations, A Study of Statelessness, at 43, U.N. Doc. E/1112;E/1112/Add.1 (Aug. 1, 1949). 53. For background, see ROBINSON, supra note 48. See also Paul Weis, The Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, 10 INT'L & COMP. L. Q. 255 (1961). 54. Tendayi Bloom, Katherine Tonkiss & Phillip Cole, Introduction: Providing a Framework for Understanding Statelessness, in UNDERSTANDING STATELESSNESS 5 (Tendayi Bloom et al. eds., 2017). In this regard, one might say that statelessness is a challenge to the liberal order of States, and the liberal order's failure is part of the overall rise of the sentiment against (neo)liberalism. 55. See United Nations Ad Hoc Committee on Refugees and Stateless Persons, Ad Hoc Committee on Statelessness and Related Problems, Comments of the Committee on the Draft Convention, U.N. Doc. No. E/AC.32/L/32 (Feb. 10, 1950). 56. Id. 57. ROBINSON, supra note 48; see also MICHELLE FOSTER & HÉLÈNE LAMBERT, INTERNATIONAL REFUGEE LAW AND THE PROTECTION OF STATELESS PERSONS 40–46 (2019).