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Figure 3. States parties as a percentage of UN membership over time, 1954–2016. UN Treaty Collection, 2016.
While fewer than half the UN membership have ratified either of the statelessness conventions as of December 2016, the current UNSG, Antόnio Guterres, believes there has been “a real breakthrough, a quantum leap … in relation to the protection of stateless people” (UNHCR 2011b) over the last few years. For example, a High Level Ministerial Meeting was held in Geneva in 2011 where more than 150 state representatives attended and more than sixty made pledges regarding statelessness: from committing to improve birth registries and acceding to one or both of the statelessness conventions to reducing statelessness on their territory (UNHCR 2012d).
Additionally, in 2010 and 2011 three international expert meetings were held on statelessness. They addressed de jure and de facto statelessness, SSD procedures, and protecting stateless children, respectively. A fourth expert meeting was held in 2013 on interpreting Articles 5 through 9 of the 1961 statelessness convention.58 From this series of meetings and other work, UNHCR was able to issue a series of guidelines on statelessness, which culminated in their Handbook on Protection of Stateless Persons (2014g). Within this document UNHCR defines a stateless person under the 1954 convention, articulates the rights and status of stateless persons under international law and provides advice on how governments can create statelessness status determination procedures, among other guidelines and clarificatory points. In effect, this Handbook, along with Guideline No. 4 on a child’s right to a nationality (UNCHR 2012c), can be used to assist a wide array of actors in identifying, and addressing the needs of, the stateless.
Moreover, whereas UNHCR previously admitted that it was “not doing enough” to address statelessness (UNHCR 2007), the organization “has more than tripled its expenditure on statelessness—from USD 12 million to USD 36 million in 2013” (UNHCR 2014e, 6) and “The number of UNHCR operations planning statelessness activities more than doubled between 2009 and 2011, from 28 to 60” (UNHCR 2012a, 45). The activities carried out by UNHCR teams center upon the agency’s four areas of responsibility, including the identification and protection of stateless persons and the prevention and reduction of statelessness. As such, UNHCR has provided technical assistance to states, such as Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh, so that their nationality laws can be modified to prevent and reduce statelessness. It has carried out campaigns, conducted workshops and education programs, and provided mobile birth registration units as well (Manly and Persaud 2009).
UNHCR’s most ambitious campaign to date, however, is the aforementioned #IBelong Campaign to End Statelessness by 2024. Launched in 2014 in partnership with United Colours of Benetton (UCB),59 the Campaign’s central message is that every person on the planet has the right to belong through citizenship. In order to achieve its articulated goal of ending statelessness by 2024, UNHCR published the Global Action Plan to End Statelessness: 2014–2024 (GAP) (UNHCR 2014e).
The GAP contains ten Actions—and fifteen associated goals—that fall within UNHCR’s mandate to resolve and prevent statelessness (Actions 1–5, 7, 9) and to identify and protect stateless persons (Actions 6, 8, 9, 10). These include activities that require political will—such as state ratification of the two statelessness conventions and their grant of protection status to stateless migrants. Other actions demand economic and personnel resources—such as better data collection of stateless populations and the ability of governments to issue ID documents to all those who should hold them. Still other actions demand that governments operate in a transparent and nondiscriminatory manner, especially in the grant, denial, or deprivation of citizenship.60 Although I elsewhere critically evaluate the transformative potential of the #IBelong Campaign, and its ability to end statelessness via the GAP by 2024 (Belton 2016), it is important to note here that the Campaign is an ambitious project the likes of which has not been seen since the international community first came together to create the statelessness conventions in the aftermath of World War II.
Beside UNHCR’s latest activities, the Human Rights Council, which has long been silent on the issue of statelessness, has passed multiple resolutions on the right to a nationality in recent years (UN HRC 2008a, 2009c, 2010, 2012b, 2014). These resolutions encourage states to become parties to the statelessness conventions and to amend their national legislation with an eye to addressing statelessness. They also ask for cooperation among UN bodies on statelessness data collection, among other activities. The HRC also passed another resolution on birth registration (UN HRC 2015) and issued the OHCHR-UNSG report on the arbitrary deprivation of nationality via legislative and administrative means, with a special focus on childhood statelessness (UN HRC 2013b) during its 23rd Session.
The UN’s recent upsurge of interest in statelessness is also reflected regionally.61 The OAS, of which both The Bahamas and the Dominican Republic are members, held an International Meeting on Refugee Protection, Statelessness and Mixed Migratory Movements in the Americas in Brazil in 201062 and adopted the ensuing Brasilia Declaration on the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons in the Americas (UNHCR 2010a). This declaration, although primarily focused on refugees, resolves:
7. To urge countries in the Americas to consider acceding to the international instruments on statelessness, reviewing their national legislation to prevent and reduce situations of statelessness, and strengthening national mechanisms for comprehensive birth registration.
8. To promote the values of solidarity, respect, tolerance and multiculturalism, underscoring the non-political and humanitarian nature of the protection of refugees, internally displaced persons and stateless persons, and recognizing their rights and obligations as well as their positive contributions to society. (UNHCR 2010a, 3; italics in original)
The regional intergovernmental organization has passed several resolutions on the “Prevention and Reduction of Statelessness and Protection of Stateless Persons in the Americas” as well (OAS 2010, 2011, 2013b, 2014). In these resolutions, the OAS General Assembly, akin to the UN Human Rights Council, encourages member states to ratify the statelessness conventions and to amend domestic legislation to prevent and reduce statelessness. Highlighting the importance of regional education on statelessness, the OAS issued a more comprehensive resolution on statelessness, AG/RES.2826 (XLIV-O/14), in which it calls for continued training of member states representatives on the issue of statelessness. In addition to reiterating its calls to amend domestic legislation in line with international law relating to statelessness, this 2014 resolution also asks states to strengthen their civil registry systems,63 amend nationality laws to prevent and eliminate statelessness, and draft regional guidelines on the protection of stateless people. Interestingly, the OAS declares statelessness “a serious global humanitarian problem” in this resolution as well (OAS 2014, 1).
In keeping with its effort to educate governments on the issue of statelessness, the organization has created spaces for government functionaries and interested stakeholders to come together and discuss ways to move forward in addressing regional statelessness. For example, the OAS recently held a workshop on the “Fundamental Elements for Identification and Protection of Stateless Persons and Prevention and Reduction of Statelessness in the Americas,” which served as “an opportunity for participants to strengthen their awareness on the phenomenon of statelessness, as well as to [sic] the legal tools available to identify and provide protection for stateless persons, and to prevent and reduce statelessness” (OAS 2012, n. pag.).
Heeding resolution AG/RES.2826 (XLIV-O/14)’s call to draft regional guidelines on statelessness, member states of the OAS recently came together in a series of subregional meetings to revisit the Cartagena Declaration on Refugees (OAS 1984) as part of UNHCR’s Cartagena +30 process.64 From this series of meetings, the Brazil Declaration and Plan of Action for the Americas (UNHCR 2014c) was issued. Significantly, the Brazil Declaration addresses statelessness more expansively than its regional predecessor declarations, with an entire section devoted to solutions for eradicating and preventing statelessness. While it
