2021 Statelessness & Citizenship Review 3(2) outside the country of their nationality who are unable or, for valid reasons, are unwilling to avail themselves of the protection of that country’.34 Consequently, de facto stateless persons find themselves sitting uneasily between the protection afforded by the 1951 Convention (under which refugee status is determined on the basis of a facts-based assessment) and by the 1954 Convention (under which stateless status is determined on the basis of a purely legal assessment). Under such circumstances, the only relevance of the 1954 Convention for de facto stateless EDPs would lie in the non-binding recommendation of the 1954 Convention’s final declaration that state parties ‘consider sympathetically the possibility of according to that person the treatment which the Convention accords to a stateless person’.35 Hence, during this crucial gap in time, the law on statelessness would fail to provide any actual protection for EDPs, as they could only be described as de facto stateless and would thus fall outside of the 1954 Convention’s scope.36 While the protection of stateless persons was originally intended to be included as an additional protocol to the 1951 Convention, the 1954 Convention’s drafters instead opted to protect stateless persons through a standalone instrument.37 This was based on the reasoning that a separate instrument would allow states to ratify only the statelessness instrument without having to first ratify the 1951 Convention, as would have been needed for an additional protocol.38 This has failed to materialise and ever since, the 1954 Convention has lagged behind the 1951 Convention in terms of ratifications.39 However, the number of ratifications can be a poor indicator of practical relevance since to be of any value to stateless persons, the instrument must be implemented domestically through a statelessness determination procedure (‘SDP’). In this, the law on statelessness also trails behind the 1951 Convention. Numerous state parties lack SDPs, and even those that have established one do not always do so in full accordance with the 1954 Convention or the guidance provided by the UNHCR in its handbook on statelessness. 40 As a result, claiming stateless status is a complex and uncertain process even in states that have implemented SDPs. In those that have not, it is often simply not a possibility. Furthermore, these substantial lacunae are also compounded by the lack of ratifications to the 1954 Convention in the geographical areas most relevant to the 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 Hugh Massey, UNHCR and De Facto Statelessness (Background Paper No LPPR/2010/01, Division of Internal Protection and UNHCR, April 2010) 61. Final Act of the United Nations Conference of Plenipotentiaries on the Status of Refugees and Stateless Persons, opened for signature 14 December 1950, 360 UNTS 117 (entered into force 28 July 1951) [III], quoted in Torres Camprubí (n 12) 200 (emphasis added). This approach is also emphasised in the 1961 Convention (n 15): see Park (n 12) 14. Park (n 12) 14. van Waas (n 33) 68–69. ibid 68. As of 2021, there are 95 states party to the 1954 Convention (n 10), versus 146 for the 1951 Convention (n 5): see ‘2. Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees’, United Nations Treaty Collections (Web Page, 19 March 2021) <https://treaties.un.org/Pages/ViewDetailsII.aspx?src=TREATY&mtdsg_no=V2&chapter=5&Temp=mtdsg2&clang=_en>; ‘3. Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons’, United Nations Treaty Collections (Web Page, 19 March 2021) <https://treaties.un.org/Pages/ViewDetailsII.aspx?src=TREATY&mtdsg_no=V3&chapter=5&Temp=mtdsg2&clang=_en> (‘Signatories of the 1954 Convention’) UNHCR Handbook (n 33) [57]–[124]. On national implementation of statelessness determination procedures, see, eg, Bianchini, ‘Identifying the Stateless’ (n 33) 440. For country-specific information in Europe, see ‘Countries’, Statelessness Index (Web Page, 22 March 2021) <https://index.statelessness.eu/countries>. 294