This paper addresses the implications of the “new ethical terrain” in relation to statelessness. In 2012, UNHCR called upon states to work towards its elimination. In 2014, UNHCR will focus on durable solutions, favourable protection environment and fair protection processes and documentation. This suggests an institutional policy of deeper and more sustained commitment to the universal implications of the state system, which include both (more-or-less) universal rights, and enduring discrimination between insiders and outsiders. However, the concept of cascading “human wrongs” as part of a post 9/11 “legitimacy crisis” for the core rights of the person (Dunne 2007), taken alongside the insights of “misrecognition” highlights the constraints operating on attempts to institutionalise stronger commitments to the well-being of non-citizens. Assessment of the normative and ethical dimensions of the new agenda on statelessness suggests, regrettably, that: the new ethical landscape seems to be characterised by key features of the old terrain.
