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Nansen passports, originally and officially stateless persons passports, were internationally recognized refugee travel documents from 1922 to 1938, first issued by the League of Nations's Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees to stateless person refugees. "The Little-Known Passport That Protected 450,000 Refugees" Atlas Obscura. Retrieved October 10, 2017 They quickly became known as "Nansen passports" for their promoter, the Norwegian statesman and polar explorer Fridtjof Nansen.
The precipitating event for the Nansen passport was the 1921 announcement by the new government of the Soviet Union revoking the citizenship of Russians living abroad, including some 800,000 refugees from the Russian Civil War. Nansen the humanist. Retrieved December 11, 2012 The first Nansen passports were issued following an international agreement reached at the Intergovernmental Conference on Identity Certificates for Russian Refugees, convened by Fridtjof Nansen in Geneva from July 3, 1922, to July 5, 1922, in his role as High Commissioner for Refugees for the League of Nations. By 1942, they were honoured by governments in 52 countries.
In 1924, the Nansen arrangement was broadened to also include Armenians, and in 1928 to Assyrian people, Bulgarian people, and Turkish refugees. Approximately 450,000 Nansen passports were provided Nansen-pass Store Norske Leksikon. Retrieved December 11, 2012 to stateless people and refugees who needed travel documents, but could not obtain one from a national authority.
Following Nansen's death in 1930, the passport was handled by the Nansen International Office for Refugees within the League of Nations. At that point the passport no longer included a reference to the 1922 conference, but were issued in the name of the League. The office was closed in 1938; passports were thereafter issued by a new agency, the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees under the Protection of the League of Nations in London.
target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> The Nansen Office Arkivverket. Retrieved December 2, 2014
While Nansen passports are no longer issued, existing national and supranational authorities, including the United Nations, issue travel documents for stateless people and refugees, including certificates of identity (or "alien's passports") and refugee travel documents.
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