Part One: The Protection of Stateless Persons in Australian Law — The Rationale for a Statelessness Determination Procedure

Abstract

Over the past decade, there has been renewed global interest in statelessness. With the 50th anniversary of the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness in 2011 (coinciding with the 60th anniversary of the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees), the UNHCR organised a Ministerial Intergovernmental Event on Refugees and Stateless Persons which stimulated unprecedented commitments by states to adopt and implement actions to address statelessness. There were further important developments in 2014. That year marked the 60th anniversary of the 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, the launch of the UNHCR’s 10-year campaign to eradicate statelessness, and the first Global Forum on Statelessness, co-hosted by the UNHCR and Tilburg University. However, to date there has been virtually no legal or academic analysis of statelessness in Australia, and little in the way of government responses to it. This article, together with a companion article published separately in this issue, provides the first comprehensive analysis of the state of statelessness in Australian law. It examines Australia’s compliance with its obligations under international law to identify and protect stateless persons, and makes recommendations for future legislative reform, including the creation of a statelessness status determination procedure.

Keywords: Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, Global Forum on Statelessness, Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, UNHCR, Ministerial Intergovernmental Event on Refugees and Stateless Persons, statelessness, Australia