The Prominence of Statelessness in the Work of United Nations: From Framing International Regime to Mandating Special Agency

The statelessness has marked significantly the agenda of the United Nations from early days of its inception in 1945. Its series of activities focused largely on the development of international legal framework in the post-World War II until 1960s. However, despite growing statelessness and the negative impact on fundamental rights of people around the world, the issue remained off the global agenda for almost three decades. Not only states, but even scholars and practitioners had until recently ignored the scope and nature of the statelessness. It was only in the mid-1990s, the issue regained international attention, with the UN General Assembly expanding the mandate of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to also encompass the plight of stateless people. The current paper discusses the content and scope of the statelessness regime which gave birth to two universal instruments. It also explores the mandate and global actions of the UNHCR on statelessness. Conceiving the statelessness as a human rights issue, this article seeks to understand whether the endeavors within UN adequately respond to the magnitude of the problem.