“De facto” statelessness and prohibition of expulsion in a recent judgment of the Italian Corte di Cassazione, Corte di Cassazione (Sez. I Civile), 19 June 2019, No. 16489

The issue of statelessness attracted the attention of the international community in particular at the end of the Second World War, when this phenomenon reached unprecedented dimensions and induced the United Nations to take initiatives on this subject, such as the constitution of a working group that was set up with the aim to provide valuable legal tools for the protection of stateless persons and for improved stability in relations between States. These initiatives clearly showed the intention and commitment of the international community to proceed in the direction of the definitive elimination or at least of the containment of the condition of statelessness. The 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons represents “the primary international instrument adopted to date to regulate and improve the legal status of stateless persons and to ensure to stateless persons fundamental rights and freedoms without discrimination”. This Convention, as well as the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, both stipulated under the auspices of the United Nations, serve as the reference points for international consensus on principles relating to the problem of statelessness. The ability to exercise an effective nationality and the prevention and reduction of statelessness are a contribution to the promotion of human rights and fundamental freedoms, to the security of peoples and to stability in international relations.