Nansen passport

Nansen passport
The front cover of a Nansen passport (green stripe)
Issued by	League of Nations
Type of document	Passport
Purpose	Identification
Eligibility requirements	stateless refugees

Nansen passports were internationally recognized refugee travel documents, first issued by the League of Nations to stateless refugees.

The first Nansen passports were issued following an international agreement reached at the Intergovernmental Conference on Identity Certificates for Russian Refugees, convened by Fridtjof Nansen in Geneva from July 3, 1922 to July 5, 1922 in his role as High Commissioner for Refugees for the League of Nations. By 1942, they were honoured by governments in 52 countries. Approximately 450,000 Nansen passports were provided to stateless people and refugees who needed travel documents but could not obtain one from a national authority.

The Nansen passport was originally provided to refugees from the Russian civil war. It is estimated that about 800,000 Russian refugees had become stateless when Lenin revoked citizenship for all Russian expatriates in 1921.

In 1933, the arrangement was broadened to also include Armenian, Assyrian, and Turkish refugees.

Following Nansen's death in 1930, the passport was handled by the Nansen International Office for Refugees within the League of Nations. At that point the passport no longer included a reference to the 1922 conference, but were issued in the name of the League. The office was closed in 1938; passports were thereafter issued by a new agency, the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees in London.

A stamp in a Nansen passport

On the wall of City Hall in Oslo, Norway

The Nansen International Office for Refugees was awarded the 1938 Nobel Peace Prize for its efforts to establish the Nansen passports.

While Nansen passports are no longer issued, existing national and supranational authorities, including the United Nations, issue travel documents for stateless people and refugees, including certificates of identity (or "alien's passports") and refugee travel documents.