Milbrandt’s article highlights the need for increased debate surrounding the dire situation in which many stateless persons around the world find themselves.1 It provides a step in the right direction in that his article attempts to challenge the phenomena of statelessness and reduce its prevalence in the world. However, the idea put forward of global registration of stateless persons is critically flawed for several reasons. First it is based on a theoretically weak definition of statelessness that leaves many questions unanswered. Second pragmatic concerns with regard to how registration may not be possible within certain local socio-political context are drawn out. Third, Milbrandt fails to acknowledge the key dangers of global registration which can be clearly seen if historic and current examples of registering the stateless are considered.

Essentially this article stresses that statelessness does not exist within a political vacuum. While it can sometimes be simply rectified through a techno-legal fix it also exists within a political space of discrimination. This political space created and perpetuates the current stateless situations we find across the world today. It is argued here that a one size fits all policy of registering all stateless persons is unfeasible, will not lead to the perceived outcomes and could in fact increase the vulnerability of some stateless populations. Instead more context sensitive methods of understanding and tackling statelessness are proposed.