Acquisition of nationality through naturalization Vietnamese Government. UNHCR played a central and consistent role in channeling technical advice and political encouragement to this end. The period 2006-2008 presented a particular watershed. In 2006, UNHCR undertook high-level outreach with the Vietnamese Government to raise awareness on statelessness, including through letters from UNHCR’s Regional Bureau Director, Assistant High Commissioner – Protection, and the High Commissioner. UNHCR successfully placed statelessness on the agendas not only of the international diplomatic community in Viet Nam but also of other UN agencies operating in the country. As a result, talking points encouraging the Government to resolve statelessness were included in the brief of the United Nations Secretary-General when he visited the country in May 2006. The same year, the Vietnamese Government expressed its renewed resolve to naturalize the stateless former Cambodian refugees. This triggered a second phase of UNHCR engagement at a more technical and operational level, with a series of workshops and meetings between UNHCR and government stakeholders. Several meetings were held in 2006, but a breakthrough came at a multi-stakeholder workshop in November 2007. Participants in this workshop identified obstacles that prevented stateless Cambodian refugees from benefitting from the ordinary naturalization procedures available under Vietnamese law and suggested the adoption of exceptional procedures to overcome these challenges. This workshop concluded with the development of an Operational Plan for naturalizing stateless Cambodian refugees. The plan was approved by Viet Nam’s Deputy Prime Minister on 4 December 2007. This paved the way for a series of subsequent meetings in 2008 of a Working Group created to implement the Operational Plan. The group was composed of officials from the Vietnamese ministries of Foreign Affairs, Justice and Public Security as well as the Office of the Government and Office of the President of State.67 In the Southeast Asian region, Viet Nam adopted the 2012 ASEAN Human Rights Declaration, which contains provisions relating to the right to nationality and contribute to the protection of stateless persons and the prevention of statelessness. Viet Nam had taken the lead on the regional project of the ASEAN Commission on the Promotion and 67 58 The Working Group designated relevant authorities at both the central and local levels in Ho Chi Minh City and the two provinces of Binh Doung and Binh Phuoc, where stateless Cambodian refugees continued to reside in the former UNHCR camps. U N H C R > G P P A C T I O N 1 : R E S O LV I N G E X I S T I N G M A J O R S I T U AT I O N S O F S TAT E L E S S N E S S