The problem of statelessness is more widely recognized today than it has been in the recent past, thanks largely to the efforts of Governments, international organizations and non-governmental institutions to call attention to the plight of stateless people and the importance of preventing and reducing statelessness. The Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the UN Agency mandated to address statelessness, have long collaborated on this subject, supporting the ability of Parliaments to reform nationality laws in accordance with international standards designed to help prevent statelessness from arising. To this end, the two organizations jointly issued a first edition of a Handbook for Parliamentarians on Nationality and Statelessness in 2005. A second edition of the handbook was published in 2014, the same year that UNHCR launched the #IBelong Campaign to End Statelessness by 2024. Building on these efforts, UNHCR and the IPU are pleased to issue this new publication,a Handbook for parliamentarians, Good practices in nationality laws for the prevention and reduction of statelessness. It complements the previous publication, which was focused largely on the international framework for the right to a nationality and the technical causes of statelessness.

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Good practices in nationality laws for the prevention and reduction of statelessness, November 2018, Handbook for Parliamentarians N° 29