Introduction The problem of statelessness is more widely recognized today than it has been in the recent past, thanks largely to the efforts of Governments, international organizations and non-governmental institutions to call attention to the plight of stateless people and the importance of preventing and reducing statelessness. The Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the UN Agency mandated to address statelessness, have long collaborated on this subject, supporting the ability of Parliaments to reform nationality laws in accordance with international standards designed to help prevent statelessness from arising. To this end, the two organizations jointly issued a first edition of a Handbook for Parliamentarians on Nationality and Statelessness in 2005. A second edition of the handbook was published in 2014, the same year that UNHCR launched the #IBelong Campaign to End Statelessness by 2024. Building on these efforts, UNHCR and the IPU are pleased to issue this new publication, a Handbook for parliamentarians, Good practices in nationality laws for the prevention and reduction of statelessness. It complements the previous publication, which was focused largely on the international framework for the right to a nationality and the technical causes of statelessness. This new handbook offers practical examples of domestic legal provisions that allow States to accomplish the following: • Avoid childhood statelessness entirely • Eliminate gender discrimination from nationality laws • Establish procedures to identify stateless persons and facilitate their naturalization • Ensure that any deprivation or loss of nationality does not leave individuals stateless This handbook also identifies and promotes certain good practices in nationality laws that all States are encouraged to consider. Fortunately, as of 2018, the trend towards reforming laws to bring them in line with the two UN Statelessness Conventions and with the various human rights treaties is generally positive. For example, the number of States that do not allow mothers to confer nationality on their children on an equal basis as fathers has fallen significantly over the years, thereby diminishing a major cause of statelessness globally. Still, as of the date of publication of this handbook, 25 States maintain such gender discriminatory laws. Moreover, while many States now have provisions for conferring nationality on children born or found within their territories who would otherwise be stateless, many others lack such safeguards, or have them only partially or conditionally in place. As a result, childhood statelessness persists in many parts of the world. And as the children grow into adulthood they risk passing on their statelessness to their own children. It is also notable that in at least one area, deprivation of nationality, there are emerging laws and practices in certain countries that actually increase the risk of statelessness. 7