According to the UN Refugee Agency, a stateless person is someone who is not a citizen of any country. Citizenship is the legal bond between a government and an individual, and allows for certain political, economic, social and other rights of the individual, as well as the responsibilities of both government and citizen. A person can become stateless due to a variety of reasons such as sovereign, legal, technical, or administrative decisions or oversights. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that “Everyone has the right to a nationality.”

Related terms: Refugee, internally displaced person, asylum seeker