At the 75th Session of the Executive Committee of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Geneva, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Migration and Refugees (SRSG), David Best, addressed the High-Level Segment on Statelessness and participated in the launch of the Global Alliance to End Statelessness.

In his address, the Special Representative emphasised that 46 member states of the Council of Europe had tasked the European Committee on Legal Co-operation (CDCJ) with collecting good practices related to legal aid and representation, access to information, and justice for children involved in nationality and statelessness determination proceedings. Additionally, the CDCJ was assigned the role of negotiating an instrument to improve access to nationality for stateless children.

This initiative builds on previous efforts by the Council of Europe to address statelessness, including the European Convention on Nationality, the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), and the Recommendation on the Nationality of Children.

On the sidelines of the UNHCR plenary session, the SRSG held several bilateral meetings with the representatives of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the International Organization for Migration (IOM), and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), as well as with representatives of several member states and non-governmental organisations.

The text of the SRSG address to the 75th UNHCR Executive Committee.