[This blog originally appeared on the website of the European Network on Statelessness]
The
word “statelessness” had not yet entered my vocabulary when I first arrived in
Thailand during the spring of 2005. I had come to conduct research on human
trafficking, and I was under the false impression that everyone had nationality
somewhere. At first I caught glimpses
of the problem from Bangkok – murmurs of hill tribe women on Soi Cowboy in the red light district,
offhand remarks about “illegal” indigenous groups that sent children south to
work in resort towns such as Pattaya and Phuket. It wasn’t until I headed north
to the border town of Mae Sai, where I was scheduled to work with a local NGO,
that the term “stateless” began to have meaning for me. It was in Mae Sai and
the surrounding countryside where I witnessed the human costs resulting from lack
of nationality – including poverty and vulnerabilities to sex trafficking. By
the time I arrived back in the United States to write a thesis on what I had
learned in Thailand, the issue of statelessness had become a major source of
frustration for me. Not only had I never heard of this problem during my
graduate studies, but it seemed that very few scholars, policymakers, or human
rights advocates had heard of it, either. My own subsequent searches for
information – hunts for library books and journal articles, online searches,
calls to refugee law centers and immigration NGOs in the United States –
yielded few results and seemed to confirm the inattention described, with
annoyance, by NGO and UN experts in Thailand.
The issue of statelessness has
certainly gained more attention from the international community since 2005,
yet the problem has not fully emerged onto the human rights agenda. Although it
is true that statelessness has enjoyed partial emergence during the past few
years – the UNHCR recently prioritized statelessness as a budgetary pillar, for
instance, and a landmark 2011 ministerial meeting in Geneva reinforced and
expanded state commitments to international legal frameworks related to
statelessness – the problem has not yet garnered widespread public attention or
become “mainstream” enough to warrant campaign adoption by a major human rights
NGO. This disconnect between the issue’s severity and its level of support has prompted me to ask the simple
question: Why do some issues make it onto the international NGO agenda while
others do not? Limited academic scholarship on issue emergence – the twin steps
of constructing and accepting a specific problem as an international issue in
the first place – provides us with a starting point, but fails to adequately
explain the non-emergence of statelessness.
In an attempt to better
understand why statelessness has received limited international attention
despite its global pervasiveness and negative ramifications, I conducted
interviews with 21 decision-makers at leading U.S. human rights and
humanitarian NGOs. My findings identified three main weaknesses for the issue
of statelessness: issue heterogeneity, lack of global solutions, and lack of
political will. First, issue heterogeneity creates strategic obstacles and
impedes statelessness’ emergence. As one interview respondent quite simply
observed, “statelessness is not clear to a lot of people.” Because of the
complex nature of this issue, statelessness encounters obstacles related to
strategic characteristics including: absence of a clear problem, misunderstood
issue basics, unclear consequences, lack of data, and lack of both compelling
images and a story that can be easily interpreted by the media. Second, statelessness
currently lacks widely-recognized global solutions, which impedes the issue’s
potential for change. “I think it’s a hard issue to approach in a generic kind
of way. Statelessness covers a lot of different situations,” explained an
interview respondent. “The more concrete and focused, and the more achievable
your goal becomes, [the better]. With statelessness, this is especially the
case.” Third, lack of political will for eliminating statelessness serves as a
major obstacle in the process of issue emergence, and this lack occurs for a
number of reasons. Critics worry that the issue is fundamentally tied to the
delicate issue of state sovereignty, and vulnerabilities for stateless
populations limit grassroots organizing and community feedback. Many organizers
assess issues in a “hierarchy of needs” and do not rank statelessness as a top
priority in relation to other human rights and humanitarian problems.
Thankfully, statelessness also
possesses a number of strengths for eventual issue emergence. It offers
organizations possibilities for filling gaps and creating niches, and it may
appeal to some supporters because it connects to other social problems and
results in long-term rights violations. Statelessness fits with a number of
organizational identities, including NGOs focused on human rights and refugees,
and there are already dedicated anti-statelessness advocates located within
several NGOs. Characteristics related to the overall political environment –
including statelessness’ potential fit with emerging needs and trends, as well
as its ties to current political situations – may also benefit issue organizers.
Lastly, powerful narratives and images from stateless communities could inspire
support, as well as fit with media trends and technologies. Although
anti-statelessness mobilization has been limited so far, these strengths help
explain why organizers have achieved partial, limited emergence within the
international community.
It is imperative that organizers
build on statelessness’ existing strengths and overcome obstacles to its
successful issue emergence. My recommendations include:
·
Framing and information sharing – Formulate
two levels of framing and information sharing; one focused on reaching members
of the general public and another targeted at the elite ranks of policymakers,
academics, and advocates.
·
Operationalize conventions – Organizers
must build on existing legal frameworks (particularly the 1954 and 1961
statelessness conventions) to implement a decisive global “plan of action” for
eliminating statelessness. This will require information sharing, as well as
complementing international frameworks with local research, problem-solving,
and advocacy.
·
Strategic leadership – Seek out
leadership within state governments and international organizations.
·
Provide educational opportunities – Because
many stateless individuals are not fully aware of their rights to nationality,
educational programs must outline this fundamental information in
understandable ways.
·
Make grassroots mobilization feasible – Increased
grassroots organizing among stateless populations is necessary for increasing
political will, yet stateless individuals represent an inherently weak
constituency. NGOs may help spur grassroots activism by offering partnerships
that provide some level of local participation.
To read more about my work on
issue emergence and its implications for statelessness, please see my recent
publications in Forced Migration Review (http://www.fmreview.org/young-and-out-of-place/kingston.html)
and Human Rights Review (“’A Forgotten Human
Rights Crisis’: Statelessness and Issue (Non) Emergence,” available online and
forthcoming in print).
Lindsey Kingston – Director, Institute
for Human Rights & Humanitarian Studies at Webster University
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