24 Refugee Law Initiative Working Paper 76 tems, despite most of these states being parties to the 1954 and 1961 Statelessness Conventions. As a result, litigants must take into consideration several factors when deciding whether to go forward with a child statelessness case. “A huge part of litigation is risk assessment.”176 All risk is assessed within a legal and cultural context that varies by jurisdiction. In this sample of cases, setting aside the international cases, Croatia, Cyprus, France, Ireland, The Netherlands, Poland, Serbia, Switzerland, and the UK presented negative cases. Of those nine states, almost half either have not acceded to either the 1954 or 1961 Statelessness Conventions or have failed to accede to the 1961 Convention (Cyprus, France, Poland, Switzerland). Considering the first four articles of the 1961 Convention are dedicated to preventing childhood statelessness, and none of these states have committed themselves to this Convention, litigators and courts were forced to rely upon other laws (Figure 3). Figure 3 It is not that simple, of course, to conclude that a state’s non-accession to the 1961 Convention means stateless child litigants are likely to fail. Of the nine negative states, seven of them also present positive cases. Further, Croatia is a party to both Conventions without reservations, and it did not present any positive cases. Similarly, the UK is a party to both Conventions, but its negative cases outweigh its positive outcomes. Sometimes litigators may weigh whether to even argue statelessness in certain jurisdictions. “Do you argue statelessness or do you talk about discrimination?”177 In the context of statelessness, oftentimes “common language isn’t there in certain jurisdictions – it seems so fundamental, but it doesn’t exist.”178 In some states, statelessness may have a local meaning entirely separate from the Conventions – “a more popular meaning that is political.”179 In 33 percent of the positive cases, the case involved the 1954 and/or the 1961 Conventions in party arguments or a court’s reasoning, while 36 percent of negative cases cited the Conventions. The parties and courts in the positive cases relied more heavily upon broader and perhaps more binding human rights instruments such as the ECHR. Taking The Netherlands again as an example, in June 2023 this state passed two amendments to the Dutch Nationality Act, creating a statelessness determination procedure and an ability for stateless children born in the Netherlands to obtain Dutch nationality.180 The most recent case from the SCLD sample is in fact from 176 Scholar A (n 67). 177 Scholar A (n 67). 178 Executive A (n 70). 179 Scholar A (n 67). 180 Wet vaststellingsprocedure staatloosheid (Netherlands Parliament Statelessness Determination Procedure Act) (2023); Intrekking voorbehouden Verdrag status van staatlozen in verband met de vaststelling van staatloosheid (Netherlands Parliament Withdrawal of Reservations to the Convention on the Status of Stateless Persons in connection with the determination of statelessness) (2023).