Legal Approaches to Combating Statelessness

On October 10, James Goldston, executive director of the Open Society Justice Initiative, addressed a UNHCR Executive Committee panel in Geneva to mark the 50th Anniversary of the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons. The Justice Initiative made a series of recommendations to national governments and United Nations bodies to prevent and effectively remedy statelessness. "States may not deprive persons of citizenship arbitrarily or in such a way as to engender statelessness," the panel was told.