2019 Statelessness & Citizenship Review 1(1) Migration and the Global Compact on Refugees all mention statelessness. 117 However, the ways in which it is incorporated provide further evidence of international organisations’ depoliticisation of the issue as a strategy for making it an object of global governance. How an issue is framed has important consequences in terms of its uptake on the global governance agenda. Five years on from the watershed year of 2014, statelessness still enjoys only partial issue emergence, due in part to ongoing framing problems. As Lindsey Kingston’s research indicates, statelessness is either placed into ready-made narratives about refugees or migrants, or narrowly defined as a legal issue wherein lack of legal nationality is seen as the most pressing concern for the stateless. 118 In the SDA, several of the goals and targets are relevant to the elimination of statelessness and associated forms of discrimination. The most directly related target is SDG 16.9, which again frames the issue in rather narrow, technical terms: ‘by 2030, provide legal identity for all, including birth registration’. 119 According to ISI, this may be open to interpretation and may not automatically guarantee the human right to a nationality. 120 The target is worded in a way that acknowledges birth registration as an aspect of legal identity, but not its equivalent. 121 Nonetheless, it is aligned with existing human rights obligations, and may make a positive contribution toward the prevention of child statelessness. The UNHCR’s technical framing of statelessness and institutional mandate are well represented in the New York Declaration, 122 the Global Compact on Migration and the Global Compact on Refugees. 123 The New York Declaration lays out commitments to address relevant governance challenges, including statelessness: We recognize that statelessness can be a root cause of forced displacement and that forced displacement, in turn, can lead to statelessness. We take note of the campaign of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to end statelessness within a decade and we encourage States to consider actions they could take to reduce the incidence of statelessness. We encourage those States that have not yet acceded to the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons and the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness to consider doing so. 124 Here it is worth noting that whereas the focus of the document is on refugees and migrants, statelessness is framed exclusively in relation to UNHCR’s mandate on forced displacement. The New York Declaration also called for the development of global compacts on migration and refugees. 125 The two processes were quite different in terms of 117 Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (Compact, United Nations, 11 July 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 2018) (‘Global Compact on Migration’); United Nations, The Global Compact on Refugees (Compact, 26 June 2018). Lindsey N Kingston, ‘Conceptualizing Statelessness as a Human Rights Challenge: Framing, Visual Representation, and (Partial) Issue Emergence’ (2019) 11(1) Journal of Human Rights Practice 52. Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, GA Res 70/1, UN Doc A/RES/70/1 (25 September 2015) Goal 16.9. Kingston (n 118). Staples (n 82) 178. New York Declaration (n 116) art 72. Global Compact on Migration (n 117); The Global Compact on Refugees (n 117). New York Declaration, UN Doc A/RES/71/1 (n 116) art 72. ibid art 63, Annex I art 19, Annex II arts 1–2. 150