Amicus curiae of UNHCR in the case of B.D.(Bhutan and Nepal) -v- The Minister for Justice and Equality & ors

Where a State arbitrarily deprives a person of his or her nationality and the person has no other nationality, the person should be regarded as stateless or ‘not having a nationality’ within the meaning of the phrase in Article 1A(2) of the 1951 Convention. Accordingly, under Article 1A(2) of the 1951 Convention, for a stateless applicant the country of reference against which the refugee definition should be assessed is the country of former habitual residence. Where a person ‘not having a nationality’ has more than one country of former habitual residence, that person should only have to meet the refugee criteria of a well-founded fear of persecution for one or more Convention grounds under Article 1A(2) of the 1951 Convention in relation to one of those countries and be unable or, owing to such fear, be unwilling to return to that country. As part of an assessment of whether a stateless person is a Convention refugee, a determination must also be made as to whether the person is excluded from refugee status pursuant to Article 1E of the 1951 Convention.