Statelessness and Denationalized Populations

A stateless person is defined, under Article 1 of the 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, as someone "not considered as a national by any State under the operation of its law," a condition distinct from refugee status, since a person can be stateless without ever having crossed a border, and can also be a refugee while also holding a nationality. UNHCR, which since a 1974 General Assembly mandate and further resolutions in 1996 and 2006 holds global responsibility for statelessness prevention, reduction, and protection alongside its original refugee mandate, has reported that several million stateless people are known to national authorities worldwide, while acknowledging that the true figure is almost certainly considerably higher because many governments do not systematically identify or register stateless populations within their territory. UNHCR's #IBelong Campaign to End Statelessness, launched in 2014 with a ten-year target of 2024, sought to close the legal gaps, chiefly gender-discriminatory nationality laws and gaps in birth registration, that most commonly produce statelessness across generations.