1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness

Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness

Stateless Palestinian refugees, 1948
Signed	30 August 1961
Location	New York City
Effective	13 December 1975
Condition	6 ratifications
Signatories	5
Parties	67
Depositary	Secretary-General of the United Nations
Languages	Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish

The Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness is a 1961 United Nations multilateral treaty whereby sovereign states agree to reduce the incidence of statelessness. The Convention was originally intended as a Protocol to the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, while the 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons was adopted to cover stateless persons who are not refugees and therefore not within the scope of the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees.

While one case of statelessness was identified in the Protocol relating to a Certain Case of Statelessness agreed at The Hague on 12 April 1930: "In a State whose nationality is not conferred by the mere fact of birth in its territory, a person born in its territory of a mother possessing the nationality of that State and of a father without nationality or of unknown nationality shall have the nationality of the said State." Overtime, many signatories have adjusted their laws to ensure this rule remains true. (For example, in Australian nationality law, a child born in the country acquires citizenship if any parent is a citizen). However, despite this, many cases remained ambiguous or uncovered primarily due to the fact that a person did not always receive the nationality of its parents, or was born in a certain place and not always provided citizenship of that state.

The Nansen International Office For Refugees, an organization of the League of Nations, was internationally in charge of refugees from war areas from 1930 to 1939. It received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1938. Their Nansen passports, designed in 1922 by founder Fridtjof Nansen, were internationally recognized identity cards first issued by the League of Nations to stateless refugees. In 1942 they were honored by governments in 52 countries and were the first refugee travel documents.