Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness
Stateless Palestinian refugees, 1948
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| Signed | 30 August 1961 |
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| 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.
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.
Migrations forced from political instability during World War II and its immediate aftermath highlighted the international dimensions of problems presented by unprecedented volumes of displaced persons including those rendered effectively stateless.
Dating from December 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights at Article 15 affirms that:
At the Fourth United Nations General Assembly Session in October–December 1949, the International Law Commission included the topic "Nationality, including statelessness" in its list of topics of international law provisionally selected for codification. At the behest of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) in its 11th Session soon after, that item was given priority.
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