The discrimination may last from the cradle to the grave. It is a world in which parents cannot register the birth of a newborn baby. As children grow they may not be able to attend school, obtain a job, travel or get married. When they die they suffer the final indignity of an anonymous burial without official recognition. Up to 12 million people scattered across the “THE TERM ‘STATELESS globe inhabit this twilight world known as PERSON’ MEANS A PERSON statelessness where they lack access to basic WHO IS NOT CONSIDERED political and social rights and do not have a AS A NATIONAL BY country they can call their own. ANY STATE UNDER THE There are other disenfranchised global OPERATION OF ITS LAW.” groups — 15.2 million refugees and an estiArticle 1, the 1954 mated 26 million internally displaced people Convention (IDPs) in 2011. But while the plight of those two groups is well documented, the stateless – virtual ‘non persons’ or ‘legal ghosts’ – receive far less attention, official “IF THE LAW OF A understanding or assistance. CONTRACTING STATE There are international instruments on ENTAILS LOSS OF statelessness. The Universal Declaration of NATIONALITY AS Human Rights underlines that: “Everyone A CONSEQUENCE has the right to a nationality.” A statelessOF ANY CHANGE ness protocol attached to the draft 1951 UN IN THE PERSONAL STATUS OF A PERSON Refugee Convention was separated to form SUCH AS MARRIAGE, the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of TERMINATION Stateless Persons and, seven years later, the 1961 OF MARRIAGE, Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness LEGITIMATION, was adopted. RECOGNITION OR And because refugee, IDP and statelessADOPTION, SUCH LOSS ness problems often overlap, the UN General SHALL BE CONDITIONAL Assembly in 1974 designated the UN refugee UPON POSSESSION agency (UNHCR) to assist with implementation OR ACQUISITION OF of the 1961 Convention and, subsequently, to ANOTHER NATIONALITY.” promote state accession to the legal instruments, Article 5, identify, reduce and prevent statelessness and the 1961 Convention protect the rights of the disenfranchised. 2 THE WORLD’S STATELESS PEOPLE • 2011 U N H C R / G . C O N STA N T I N E / U K R • 2 0 0 9 AN OVERVIEW –CHALLENGES, NUMBERS, SOLUTIONS