Statelessness Programme Blog

GUEST BLOG: Mapping Statelessness in the United Kingdom

2012-02-14T13:36:00.000+01:00

For too long, the situation facing stateless people in the UK has been little understood. In light of this in November 2011, and on the 50^th anniversary of the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, Asylum Aid and the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) published a joint research report Mapping Statelessness in the United Kingdom.

This year-long research was motivated by a desire to shed light on this hidden issue – basically to better understand the situation and to see what government could do to improve the way it treats stateless persons in the UK. There were three main goals. Firstly to evaluate available data sources in order to map the number and profile of stateless persons in the UK. Secondly to gain an in-depth understanding of the situation faced by stateless persons by carrying out 37 semi-structured interviews in 10 cities across the UK. Thirdly to analyse national law, policy and practice in light of the UK’s international obligations.

It is to the UK’s credit that it is one of only 37 states that have ratified both the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness and the 1954 Convention on the Status of Stateless Persons. Yet at the same time the report findings bring home the reality that ratification without proper implementation is not enough to adequately protect the rights of stateless persons. While British nationality law is generally effective at preventing statelessness among children born in the UK, there remains significant scope for improvement in the way the UK treats stateless migrants. Many of the key findings from the research relate to problems flowing from the fact that at present the UK does not have a dedicated or accessible statelessness determination procedure. This limits the ability of the UK authorities to identify which individuals are stateless in order to confer the rights owing to them under the 1954 Statelessness Convention and international human rights law.

We identified several key recommendations. Firstly the UK needs to reform its data management systems in order to more accurately record the size of the stateless population. Secondly improved guidance and training is required to enable decision-makers to better identify stateless persons who come into contact with immigration control. Thirdly the UK should follow the example of other European states by introducing a dedicated statelessness determination procedure. Fourthly this should be combined with a grant of lawful immigration status for those individuals recognised as stateless and who lack a right of residence in any other country.

Otherwise, and without any means to regularise their immigration status, stateless persons will continue to be left in limbo and at risk of destitution, arbitrary detention and other human rights infringements. Of the 37 persons interviewed for the research 12 had been detained and 28 had experienced destitution (11 of whom had spent periods sleeping rough on the streets). The vast majority had been compelled to claim asylum because that was the only route open to them but if refused found themselves left in a nightmarish legal limbo with no solution in sight. A robust statelessness determination procedure would not only reduce the risk of human rights infringements but would also help relieve pressure on an already over-stretched asylum system. Asylum Aid will be advocating that any new determination procedure should be based on forthcoming UNHCR Guidelines on the proper identification of statelessness.

As well as seeking to continue a constructive dialogue with the UK authorities about how to implement the report’s key recommendations, Asylum Aid will continue its awareness-raising and capacity-building work to help equip civil society organisations to better identify and respond to the needs of stateless persons. We will also continue to engage at the pan-European level, including through involvement with the European Network on Statelessness (ENS) bringing together non-governmental organisations, academic initiatives, and individual experts committed to address statelessness in Europe by conducting and supporting legal and policy, awareness-raising and capacity-building activities. The setting up of this network is testament to an increased understanding of the need for European governments and civil society to be better able to pick out stateless persons from their caseloads or populations of concern. The UK statelessness research, along with the recently published UNHCR mapping study in the Netherlands, also point to the critical importance of and provide a possible model for similar research in other European countries in order to raise awareness about this important but hidden issue.

Mapping Statelessness is, hopefully, the start if a much-needed conversation about statelessness in the UK and beyond – and one that concludes in a lasting and fair solution for those devastated by its effects.

Chris Nash, Asylum Aid

The full UNHCR/Asylum Aid report Mapping Statelessness in the United Kingdom is available at http://www.asylumaid.org.uk/data/files/publications/mapping_statelessness.pdf

For further information about the report or Asylum Aid’s work on statelessness contact Chris Nash at chrisn@asylumaid.org.uk

Stateless and detained in the Netherlands

2012-01-24T09:16:00.000+01:00

On December 16, the UNHCR brought out a report on statelessness in relation to the Netherlands. Readingit, it is quickly apparent that much improvement is needed in the interest ofeffectively addressing statelessness in this country and the report indeedmakes a number of valid recommendations. What struck me most about the findingsof the study however, are the often degrading and inhumaneconditions that stateless people who find themselves here may be facedwith. In particular the lack of a specific procedure to determine statelessnesscontributes to this situation. The result is that many stateless people have nowhereto go after being through every procedure possible. In many cases, according tothe report, these people end up in illegal detention.

If astateless person is not able to prove that his/her stay in the Netherlands islegal, this person can be detained. The detention is avicious circle: detention, no prospect of deportation, with a release commandto leave the country, arrest and potential declaration of undesirability forillegal presence, again detention. Before 2010, when the EU Return Directivetook effect, there was not even a legal restriction on the maximum duration ofdetention. Despite the Directive, today it is still possible to continue thedetention for up to 18 months. Arguments for this are often that "thethird country national concerned does not cooperate," or that "thenecessary documentation from third countries has been delayed.

Of the 24interviewees in the report, 20 have gone through this disturbing process. Theydescribe the detention conditions heavier than or similar to criminaldetention. The idea of not having an outlook on deportation or knowledge of thelength of detention causes psychological disturbance. Even when one isreleased, the anxiety becomes so great that the person does not dare to leavethe shelter or the house. As an identification requirement exists since 2004 –meaning that everyone is expected to carry an official form of identificationand proof of legal status with them at all times - further discouraging peoplefrom leaving the house, because the risk is greater to be detained again.

The issue isif a stateless person is not regarded as stateless he/she cannot effectuate therights preserved in the 1954 Convention. A stateless person has greatdifficulty in proving his/her status as a stateless person due to severalfactors. An IND document that indicates citizenship may not be accepted asvalid, or the state where the person comes from does not provide assistance inthe clarification of nationality. The Dutch state also does not provide thenecessary help, creating a tunnel without light for the stateless person.

In theNetherlands there is not a particular procedure that determines statelessness.Because of the lack of a procedure like this stateless individuals are alwaysplaced in the wrong corner. A frequentlymade mistake is that stateless persons are put in the category of "unknownnationality”. Only after it becomes clear of what nationality the person is,their status is modified. But the burden to prove the nationality – or indeedstatelessness - is entirely on the shoulders of the stateless individual. Atpresent, the no-fault procedure offers a solution for some by recognising themas “non-removable”. While doing this you can claim a residence permit, it is nosubstitute for a statelessness determination procedure because it does notformally recognize stateless people as stateless. It is only a temporarysolution, because the state cannot remove people who have nowhere to go, plusthe procedure has a high burden of proof that can be very difficult for peopleto satisfy.

The absenceof a legal process to determine statelessness creates degrading and inhumaneconditions. To prevent more people ending up in a hopeless situation withpsychological problems, to which the current Dutch government policycontributes, it is important to intensify measures to protect statelesspersons. At the very least, a temporary residence permit could offer a solutionuntil a statelessness determination procedure has been completed. In this way,at least the waiting will go by in acceptable humanitarian circumstances.

Moshgan Wahedi, Intern,Statelessness Programme

Ukraine: time to accede

2012-01-19T14:09:00.000+01:00

Being a citizen of Ukraine and currently working as anintern for the Statelessness Programme at Tilburg University, I got veryinterested in the status of stateless people in Ukraine,- where, according toUNHCR statistics, over 40,000 people were affected by statelessness at the endof 2010. I decided to take a closer look at the national legislation whichregulates this issue and this is what I have learnt.

A new law of Ukraine on the legal status of foreignersand stateless persons was adopted on the 22nd of September 2011 and enteredinto force on the 25th of December 2011. Although some lawyers and academics hadhoped the new law to change the situation of the stateless people in Ukraine, ithas not undergone any major substantive changes to the former one of 1994.However, a new point in the law of 2011, for example, has been introduced by Article1 (21): “Certificate of a statelessperson for travel abroad - a document that identifies the statelessperson when crossing the state border of Ukraine and staying abroad”. This Article is linked to another one,Article 19, which stipulates that stateless persons residing in theterritory of Ukraine without a permanent travel document receive an ID of astateless person for travel abroad, which is a document that identifies the statelessperson when crossing the state border of Ukraine and staying abroad. Apart fromthis, the general picture of the mentioned law of 1994 has been preserved.

The new law mainly covers the issues of entry, stayand exit from Ukraine for foreigners and stateless people. The law does notinclude specific provisions on the fundamental rights and freedoms, nor theduties of the aforementioned categories of people. It does, however, state thatforeigners and stateless people, who stay in Ukraine on a valid legal basis,are entitled to the same rights and freedoms, as well as bear the same duties,as the citizens of Ukraine, subject to provisions of the Constitution ofUkraine, as well as national laws and international agreements.

Another negative feature of the new law is thatcurrently, statelessness affects several groups of people already physicallyresiding in Ukraine. Among them, the biggest one is the Crimean Tatars, most ofwhom live in the Crimean peninsula in the South of the country; but also peoplefrom former Soviet Union, such as Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Armeniaand others. So, while the law is mainly aimed at people who come from the outsideand try to enter Ukraine, all of these people live within the territory of thecountry and their status is therefore left unchanged.

Nevertheless, this law as well as the previous one of1994 has also shown us its positive tendencies. Thus, Article 1 (15) of the lawprovides that “a stateless person is a person that under applicable law is notrecognized as a citizen by any of the state”. Despite not being a party to eitherof the two main Conventions on statelessness: Convention relating to the statusof stateless persons 1954 and Convention on the reduction of statelessness1961, the drafters of the new law decided to integrate the internationaldefinition of a stateless person from the Convention 1954, which althoughslightly differently formulated, still conveys the same message as in theConvention relating to the status of stateless people 1954.

With such good policy in place, there are still somepoints that should be improved by the Ukrainian legislator. In particular, Ibelieve that the two groups who are the beneficiaries of this law, namely theforeigners and stateless people, are too different in order for the same rulesto apply to them. And most of the provisions of this law come as a “packagedeal” regulating the status of the two groups in the same manner. I think thatthe law should be divided into two separate parts, one explicitly dealing withforeigners, and another one, - with stateless people. This would give a clearpicture on how to apply it correctly to two different groups and in differentrealities that foreigners and stateless people face.

Moreover, what this law truly lacks is a specific statelessnessdetermination procedure, which would help to identify and protect statelesspeople in Ukraine. This is, however, a problem in many other countriesthroughout the world and probably one of the hardest to achieve. That is whyUkraine should become a party to both aforementioned Conventions and implementthe provisions of those documents. And, despite the fact that, at the UNHCRMinisterial meeting in Geneva which took place on December 7-8, 2011, therepresentative of Ukrainian government mentioned that Ukraine is regarding thepossibility of acceding to the Statelessness Conventions, this promise wasformulated in comparatively vague terms while other countries offered aconcrete and actionable pledge to accede to the Conventions in the near future.

With the new law in place, it is high time for theUkrainian government to prove its statement made at the UNHCR Ministerialmeeting last December and accede to the two major Conventions on statelessness.There is no better moment than now, especially taking into consideration theintroduction of an ID of a stateless person for travel abroad for thosestateless people who reside in Ukraine and do not have a permanent traveldocument in Article 19 of the new law 2011. Such travel document is an indirectrecognition of a stateless person and thus implies a need for the furtherdevelopment of the appropriate legal basis. Thus, Ukraine should accede to thetwo Conventions on statelessness to be able to secure the implementation of itsnew law.

Valeriia Cherednichenko, Intern, Statelessness Programme

Looking back on 2011, an historic year for statelessness

2012-01-13T17:18:00.002+01:00

As 2011 drew to a close, it was clear to anyone working in the field of statelessness that it had been an historic year. This was, of course, the year in which the Statelessness Programme was established, but more importantly it was a year of simply unprecedented interest in the problem of statelessness worldwide. There were two particular highlights that it is worth recalling now for the purposes of posterity. The first was the media campaign spearheaded by UNHCR in August which caused a brief but important flurry of interest in the issue from many mainstream news outlets and papers - listen here, for instance, to a BBC interview about statelessness with High Commissioner Antonio Guterres. The second undeniable highlight was the much-anticipated Interministerial meeting, convened by UNHCR, which would be a make-or-break moment in a lengthy campaign for action and pledges by states to more effectively address statelessness. While the event dealt with all of the issues under UNHCR's mandate, even before the closing address by the High Commissioner, it was clear that statelessness had stolen the limelight. To date the area of work to receive the least attention in most fora, statelessness succeeded in attracting several dozen state pledges and was a significant focus of a number of key speeches, including that of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Suddenly, the small but extremely dedicated team of statelessness experts became celebrities in the corridors of UNHCR's headquarters and the recipients of many warm words of congratulations. The meeting was summed up as a "breakthrough for statelessness", as illustrated in a great little video posted shortly thereafter on UNHCR's website.

Although somewhat overshadowed by reports of the achievements of the Interministerial meeting, another late-2011 development should not be neglected: the release of the first two in-depth studies of statelessness in countries of Western Europe. For us at the Statelessness Programme and for the also newly established in 2011 European Network on Statelessness, these reports provide invaluable amunition in the fight to get statelessness on the public and political agenda in a number of countries were the issue is a major concern. The first study released was that developed by Asylum Aid in cooperation with UNHCR about statelessness in the United Kingdom. It uncovered real difficulties in the statistical reporting on statelessness and indeed the identification of individual cases with a view to ensuring the protection of rights. The second report looked at the situation of statelessness in the Netherlands, drawing similar conclusions about the dire consequences of the lack of a procedure to establish a person's statelessness status. Both studies point to a worrying cycle of detention and destitution for stateless people, a trend that clearly underlines the urgency of taking steps forward to implement the reports' recommendations.

So, while 2011 was certainly an historic year for statelessness, it must be seen as the beginning, rather than the end of the story. 2011 witnessed the setting of a critical agenda for action and we must now seize on the momentum that has been gathered and the apetites that have been whetted for this issue. At the Statelessness Programme, we already have big plans for 2012, inspired in part by some of the past year's developments. This spring, we'll be doing a little research of our own into some of the areas flagged in UNHCR's report about statelessness in the Netherlands - after all, this is the country which plays host to our programme. We'll also be throwing our energy into a host of training activities, targeting all sorts of different stakeholders, from students to legal practitioners. Application are now, for instance, being received for our Statelessness Summer Course, organised in cooperation with Open Society Justice Initiative in July 2012. Keep an eye open throughout the year for more news on our site and for updates on the work of the European Network on Statelessness (http://www.statelessness.eu/, full website to be launched at this address in the spring).

Laura van Waas, Senior Researcher and Manager, Statelessness Programme

Nationality. Humanity.

2011-12-14T22:31:00.005+01:00

Nopiece of paper, no state, no treaty, can ever affect one’s foundation oflife. All of us are born equal, with equal rights and for this reason itis only just to be treated alike. But above all, it is human.

Astateless person, one without a nationality, is legally defined as follows: ‘Aperson who is not considered a national by any state under the operation of itslaw.’ Being a national comes along with the practice and protection of manyrights. For example the right to travel, and the right to be protected outsideyour own state. But when citizenship is stripped away suddenly having thoserights becomes a myth because in practice the rights will often vanish. Usingcitizenship in order to define a person creates the theory that a non-citizenhas fewer rights to practice and therefore has almost no opportunity to livelife equally to a citizen. Not having citizenship affects people in a mannerthat degrades human integrity. But does it make people any less human?

Iwould argue that it doesn’t. After all, it is important to keep in mind thatcitizenship is only one way of categorising or defining human beings. Fourother factors that play a much bigger role in defining human beings are:anatomy, history, language and culture. Let us go through these factors and atthe same time make the link to statelessness.

So, what characterizes a human being?From a biological stance, one could be inclined to answer by an array ofphysical features, such as two arms, two legs, a torso, and a head. Evidentlythere may be inconsistencies with the provided definition due to congenital factorsor as the result of various events in life, but in any case this should bepotentially foreseeable enough for the definition to have sufficient grounding.A stateless person does not differ at all as a human being in the sense of thisdefinition from a national.

Then,a man’s life is influenced by the history of his birthplace, by persistingcultural norms and values, by his religious beliefs, and by his personal experienceset cetera. For this reason it is wise to also consider social aspects whenattempting to define a human being.

Tostart off with the past: the history of the place of origin, often one’sbirthplace. Even though it is difficult for a man of the 21^stcentury to identify with his ancestors of many centuries ago, we can stillspeak of a certain level of sympathy towards one’s past. It provides anunmistakable identity to a large population. This way an average Egyptian couldproudly speak of the civilization in the time of the pharaohs, but a Libyanwill not be as touched by the Egyptian antiquity. Stateless people have thisparticular history too, that provides them a source of recognition. This canoften be the same as people who do have a nationality. There are cases inLebanon for example in which the mother has the nationality but the son doesnot, because it is the father only, who is entitled to pass on nationality. Whenthe stateless son gets married he will not be able to pass on his nationalityto his child. Even though he and his child are legally not recognized ascitizens of Lebanon, they still share the same past as their mother andgrandmother, and therefore they cannot be disconnected from their birthplace.

Tounderstand your own history it is important to speak the language of your past,literally. As plenty of philosophers have noted already, people usuallymisunderstand each other because of their inability to fully express themselvesin words. Language, therefore, is an important feature when defining a group ofpeople simply because it does not favour nationals above stateless people.

Fromthe evolutionary perspective, belonging to a group has always been importantfor the survival of humans. This survival mechanism still applies in our modernsocieties. A group provides security, protection, understanding, and perhapseven love. Such groupings are strongly influenced by common characteristicsrelating to culture. An Afghan proverb goes as follows: gar ba share yak lingarafti, ba yak ling begard. Translation: when you go to the land of theone-legged, make sure you walk with one leg. This proverb, to me, describes thecore of culture, no matter where on earth people are. It implies that when youare walking on one leg, in a one-legged land, make sure that you just hide theother leg, rather than cutting it off completely. This means that whereverpeople go, whoever they are, own culture always distinguishes them from othergroups of people. These traditions apply in the exact same manner to statelesspeople, because culture does not discriminate between citizens andnon-citizens.

Nationalityhas become a great tool to categorize people and to keep societies in goodorder. At the same time it condemns outsiders, who have no nationality. It robsthem of the practice of their rights and even touches human integrity in asevere, intolerable manner. With the four above factors I have tried todemonstrate that not having a nationality does not change a man’s humanity.Stateless people have the same limbs and they speak an understandable language.They have a particular history and culture that often is identical to theirneighbours who are citizens.

Statelessnessdoes not imply that people who do not belong to any state are supposed to liveand die without leaving any trace. The origin of man gives an integral sense ofdignity, and no legal definition is able to change that.

Moshgan Wahedi, Intern,Statelessness Programme

'Best interests of the child' as a uniting principle for citizenship

2011-12-09T10:04:00.001+01:00

When thinking about the Oecumene project, I reflect on what binds us together and what separates us in terms of our experiences of citizenship around the world. In my last blog, I wrote about the shared experience of statelessness, which has regrettably become a truly global case study for exploring how the absence of citizenship affects people. This time, I’d like to share some thoughts on another common or shared experience relating to citizenship, which caught my attention thanks to a recent decision of the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child. It would seem that, whether we are perusing international legal standards or delving into the domestic citizenship law of any state picked at random, one notion emerges as a uniting principle: the best interests of the child.

Every citizenship law includes provisions that regulate the attribution of a nationality ‘of origin’ or ‘by birth’- i.e. the granting of citizenship to a newborn child, providing that the child is linked to the state in some way. Thus, whether nationality is conferred under a particular law on the basis of parentage, place of birth or a combination of both, all states seem to agree on one thing: children should, in principle, acquire a nationality at birth. This approach is so universal as to go largely unquestionned. It seems simply to make sense to us that a child acquires this part of his or her identity immediately, even if this is bestowed without consultation or regard for the legal consequences that holding of a (particular) nationality may entail for the individual in later life. Only rarely does someone, perhaps a political scientist or a legal philosopher, query whether this is proper [see for instance The birthright lottery, Schacher, 2009]. Admittedly, there will be other motives for states to confer nationality at birth in this manner – not least the need to maintain a body of citizens in order to continue to exist as a state, a population being one of the constituent elements of statehood. Nevertheless, we can already cautiously conclude that this universal and mostly uncontended approach to citizenship also reveals the value that we place on the possession of a nationality. Perhaps this state practice is, in other words, evidence that to have a nationality – even an enforced one – from birth, is in the best interests of the child.

Such a conclusion is reinforced when the we dig deeper and see what importance is given by states, both individually and collectively, to the avoidance of childhood statelessness. I could name no more than one or two citizenship laws that do not encompass at least some form of safeguard to ensure that children do not become or remain stateless. True, many of these safeguards are inadequate, incomplete and often poorly implemented. Yet at a basic level, their very elaboration supports the idea that states see statelessness to be generally incompatible with the best interests of the child. Turning to international law, the principle of the best interests of the child becomes explicit. It is central, for instance, to the Convention on the Rights of the Child [article 3], which asks for the best interests of the child to be ‘a primary consideration […] in all actions concerning children’. As such, this overall principle applies to the enjoyment and therefore the interpretation and application of all rights under the convention, which includes the right to acquire a nationality [article 7]. This verifies the above assertion that states view the enjoyment of citizenship to be in the best interests of the child [see also, for instance, the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, articles 1-4].

This brings me to the recent decision of the African Committee on the Rights and Welfare of the Child which considered the situation of children of Nubian descent in Kenya [issued 22 March 2011]. Throughout the text of this decision, the best interests of the child was a recurring theme, relied upon by the Committee at numerous junctures to shape its ruling and place the children in question centre stage. The best interests of the child ‘demanded’ that the Committee consider the communication that had been brought to them on behalf of the children of Nubian descent. The best interests of the child also justified ‘an exception to the rule on exhaustion of local remedies’ in this case, because the children had been left in limbo for too long due to stagnation within the domestic court system in Kenya. And the best interests of the child was taken into account at every stage of the interpretation of Kenya’s obligations with regard to the right of a child to acquire a nationality under the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child [article 6]. The best interests of the child led the Committee to conclude that the practice of leaving children of Nubian descent without a nationality until they complete certain procedures when they are 18 years old is in violation of the African Children’s Charter. Continuing this line of reasoning, the Committee declared that the state has an obligation to implement safeguards against childhood statelessness (in the African context, a jus soli fall-back clause) ‘proactively’ and to prevent statelessness ‘as much as possible from birth’, because this is in line with the best interests of the child.

This case is one of the best examples to date of the concept of the best interests of the child being applied specifically – and explicitly – in the context of citizenship. But it is only one expression of what is emerging as a uniting principle, rooted in state practice, articulated in the aspirations of international law and gaining greater prominence in the battle against statelessness [see for instance the UNHCR expert meeting conclusions on the prevention of childhood statelessness, 2011]. It is food for thought that even if we don’t all share a common notion of what citizenship is and who should enjoy it, we do all seem to agree that it is something that no child should go without.

Laura van Waas, Senior Researcher and Manager, Statelessness Programme
[This blog post was first published as part of the OECUMENE Project and can be found here]

A little inspiration from the UNHCR interministerial meeting!

2011-12-07T17:10:00.001+01:00

Today was the first day of the 2-day intergovernmental meeting at Ministerial level, organised by UNHCR in honour of the 60th anniversary of the 1951 Refugee Convention and the 50th anniversary of the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. A good number of the statements made have talked about statelessness - an achievement that would have been unthinkable even a few years ago. For a little inspiration, here's the relevant statelessness extracts from the opening speeches by the High Commissioner for Refugees himself, Antonio Guterres and by US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton...

Antonio Guterres:
Turning now to the problem of statelessness, I am particularly heartened with the impact that commemorations activities seem to have had so far on the thinking and practice of states. An estimated 12 million people live without a nationality worldwide – a number comparable to that of refugees. Many of them are deprived of some of their most basic human rights: they cannot get married legally, go to public schools, enrol in university, or get a job. They are unable to obtain drivers licenses, birth certificates for their children, or death certificates when their loved ones pass away.

Despite the millions of persons affected by it, statelessness has long been neglected on the global agenda. But this now seems to be changing. Four states – Croatia, Nigeria, Panama and the Philippines – have acceded in 2011 to one or both of the two statelessness conventions. Serbia and Turkmenistan will be depositing instruments of accession at the Special Treaty Event this evening. I am pleased that many more states have indicated their intention to announce their accession during the next two days.

At the same time, several states are already amending their national legislation to prevent and reduce statelessness, for example by allowing both men and women to pass their nationality on to their children. Statelessness is now literally “on the map” everywhere, with no region untouched by progress.

UNHCR is particularly grateful to the many states who have become champions of statelessness, lending their support to our advocacy work to move forward in this area.

But together we must go beyond acknowledging the problems of stateless people. What they really need are solutions that enable them to secure a nationality and enjoy the full rights of citizens.

Hillary Clinton:

Today, 12 million people on this planet wake up every morning stateless, belonging to no country at all. Most of them are in developing countries without sufficient resources. And more than 40 million people are displaced around the world. The pledges we are all making today will be an important step in helping them build a better future.

Later, Acting Assistant Secretary Robinson from the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration will speak in some detail about the 28 pledges the United States is delivering. I would like to briefly mention one that is a particular priority for the United States, and for me personally. It concerns one of the major causes of statelessness, which is discrimination against women.

At least 30 countries around the world prevent women from acquiring, retaining, or transmitting citizenship to their children or their foreign spouses. And in some cases, nationality laws strip

women of their citizenship if they marry someone from another country.

Because of these discriminatory laws, women often can’t register their marriages, the births of their children, or deaths in their family. These laws perpetuate generations of stateless people who are often unable to work legally or travel freely. They cannot vote, open a bank account, or own property. They often lack access to health care and other public services. And without birth registration or citizenship documents, stateless children often cannot attend school.

In this compromised state, women and children are vulnerable to abuse and exploitation, including gender-based violence, trafficking in persons, and arbitrary arrest and detention. And that hurts whole societies—because when women are given the opportunity to participate equally, they contribute to their countries’ democratic governance, peace and stability, and economic development.

The United States has launched an initiative to build global awareness about these issues, and to support efforts to end or amend those discriminatory laws. We will work to persuade government officials and members of parliaments to change nationality laws that discriminate against women, to ensure universal birth registration, and to establish procedures and systems to facilitate the acquisition of citizenship for stateless persons.

I encourage other member states to join this effort. I am pleased that High Commissioner Guterres has signaled his support. And I encourage UNHCR to work with UN Women, UNICEF, UNDP, and other UN partners to achieve equal nationality rights for women.

No Country, No Identity, No Rights?

2011-12-06T09:13:00.001+01:00

Exhibition and Photography Workshop

Through the entire week of October 31 the exhibition “Nowhere People” by award-winning photographer Greg Constantine was displayed in the foyer of Dante-building of Tilburg University. The powerfully evocative and artistic black-and-white photos drew everyone’s attention. The special feature of the exhibition was the diversity of people who are stateless, from Bangladesh to Ukraine. It was also poignant to note that statelessness does not discriminate on age. The particular picture of a Nepalese man lying on the floor with a child in a hammock next to him showed that being stateless means that your children will be born stateless too. The great choice of black and white underlined the hopelessness and perpetuation of the issue of statelessness.

Greg Constantine has spent six years documenting the daily lives of stateless groups around the globe to produce the “Nowhere People” series. In a one-off workshop, Constantine discussed his approach to photography and to the people who are the subject of his pictures, including a guided tour of his exhibition through a PowerPoint presentation. The three-hour workshop was held on the 2^nd of November.
Constantine opened the workshop by asking the participants to introduce themselves to get a good impression of the diversity of the audience. Immediately one could feel the intimate mood of the gathering, intensified by the occasional hoarse voice of Constantine, the small group of people, the twilight and the touching photos.

He started telling about the way he approached stateless people. Whenever a photographer wants to capture people’s lives, he must get to know the people first. Therefore he never brought the camera with him while visiting people the first couple of days. By having long conversations and winning their trust, he got to know the stateless people and their problems. Especially with stateless people trust is key, because they often take risks by talking with outsiders. More important is the fact that stateless people have been neglected for too long, and they are not willing to speak to anyone. When a project has resulted in a series of photographs the struggle of selling it to the audience begins. It is important, Constantine made sure, that you believe in your own project in order to present it to a audience without prior knowledge or interest in the subject.

Symposium The official launch of the Statelessness Programme took place on November 3. The symposiums aim was to create a unique opportunity to better understand the problem of statelessness and how it affects people, both around the world and in the Netherlands. At the symposium, the guest speakers each talked about their effort to shed light on the problem of statelessness.

The symposium began with a short movie in which 10 facts about statelessness emerged. After the movie Dr. Laura van Waas, senior researcher of the Statelessness Programme, made an opening speech. She spoke briefly about the subject, and presented the following guest speakers.

Greg Constantine, the aforementioned photographer, was the first one to speak. He has worked intensively for the last six years to produce the powerful “Nowhere People” series. Through photo essays he started telling the world about the bare life conditions of stateless people. The different stateless groups included the Rohingya of Burma, the Dalit of Nepal, the Bihari of Bangladesh, the Hill Tamils in Sri Lanka, the children of Sabah (Malaysia), the Nubians of Kenya, the ex-Soviets of Ukraine, and the stateless people of the Ivory Coast. He also gave us a short glimpse of one of his new projects; the stateless people of the Dominican Republic.

Constantine spoke about the impact that the denial of citizenship has on stateless people everywhere. It can be a root cause of critical issues like forced migration, human trafficking and even armed conflict. Not only physical trouble is an every day reality, stateless people are also denied to get married or the right to reproduce, as is the case with the Rohingya in Myanmar. Constantine gave an impeccable first impression with his photo essays of statelessness around the world. He made it clear that groups of people are excluded from society by forces beyond their control. More importantly, he proved that these people need our attention to give them their rights back.

The second lecture was on the stateless people of Lebanon and Latvia given by Els Duran and Evelien Vehof. Els and Evelien are journalists who are writing about statelessness within their project “Citizens of Nowhere”. In Lebanon Els and Evelien were struck by the gender issues of statelessness. The newly wed couple they talked about were totally unaware about the fact that their children would be born stateless, because the woman could not pass on her nationality and the man was himself stateless. In Latvia they came across probably one the most interesting groups, “Russian Speakers”. During one of their bus tours their tour guide, Alexander, spoke about his pride on being stateless. He stated that being stateless was not a disadvantage in a corrupt state. It was refreshing to understand that with statelessness the hardship was overall the same, but stateless people have diverse opinions about their status as the circumstances of the state they live in differ.

The last lecture was given by the Head of Office of the UNHCR, Rene Bruin, and one of the researchers of the UNHCR on statelessness in the Netherlands, Karel Hendriks. Bruin started off with telling about some disturbing findings of the UNHCR while doing the research. One might not expect that statelessness is a big issue in the Netherlands, but the fact that a proper procedure to deal with stateless people has not been established indicates that statelessness has not been taken seriously yet. Another matter is the poor documentation of people who are not defined as Dutch nationals, foreign nationals or stateless people. The last point Bruin made was about the sometimes long-term or repeated detention of stateless people due to their lack of a regular immigration status. Hendriks gave an example of the effects of detention on stateless people by telling about a stateless person, John, living in the Netherlands. John is originally from Suriname, but has also spent a long time living abroad, including Holland. A problem occurred when both Suriname and the Netherlands were not sure anymore about how long John had been in each country and which nationality he was entitled to. For many he has been struggling living on the street in Holland, and eventually getting detained several times simply because Suriname and the Dutch state could not recognise him as a citizen but there was also no protection for him in the Netherlands as a stateless person. It is remarkable that a person can be denied a nationality due to a simple formality and live most of his life struggling to prove that he has an entitlement to a nationality.

After the lectures a discussion with the audience took place. The questions showed the frustration that was raised because of the issue. Especially the question of a lawyer on how long it would take before the Dutch government will solve this problem, illustrated the hopelessness of everyone faced with statelessness. The disappointing answer was: we can expect it take at least 5 years for a law to be introduced that would establish a statelessness procedure.

All in all, it is fair to say that at the end of the week the issue of statelessness has touched everyone who heard or saw something about it. A first attempt to reach people who are unfamiliar with these people who are forgotten has been successful, but this does not imply that our job is done. The Statelessness Programme is at its beginning on helping to understand, to research and to solve the issue of statelessness. In pursuit of these goals everyone is welcome to join, because statelessness is not simply an interesting legal subject, it prevents to live a life at its fullest. A person cannot be defined by any kind of document, but we live in a legal order where citizenship is of importance in order to practice most of our rights. With this in mind I would like to end with a citation of Hannah Arendt: “To be stripped of citizenship is to be stripped of worldliness; it is like returning to a wilderness as caveman or savages… they could live and die without leaving any trace.”

Moshgan Wahedi, Intern at the Statelessness Programme

Citizenship and the European Court on Human Rights: The case of Genovese v. Malta

2011-12-01T11:53:00.001+01:00

Although the right to a nationality is prescribed under several international legal frameworks, it is not contained as a provision in the European Convention of Human Rights. Subsequently, cases of denial of nationality could not be brought before the European Court, unless one of the consequences of this denial was to violate a separate provision. In October 2011 however a judgement on a case relating to gender discrimination in Maltese nationality law was passed before the court. The implications of the decision could potentially be a very important step in the right to nationality being accepted under the courts jurisprudence.

The case

Mr. Ben Alexander Genovese was born, out of wedlock, to a British mother and a Maltese father in 1996. Under Maltese law, a child born out of wedlock outside of Maltese territory can only obtain nationality if the mother is Maltese. The applicant was able to obtain British citizenship, but claims that his right to potentially have a relationship with his father has been violated due to gender discrimination in Maltese nationality law which did not allow him to acquire his father’s citizenship. The judges considered that the applicant’s right to a private life had been violated due to discrimination in the law. They voted six to one that there had been a violation of Article 14;

“The enjoyment of the rights and freedoms set forth in (the) Convention shall be secured without discrimination on an ground such as sex, race, colour, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, association with a national minority, property birth or other status.’’

In conjunction with Article 8,

‘’Everyone has the right to respect for his private life, his home and his correspondence.’’

What could this mean?

In this case, discrimination in nationality law has been seen to violate Article 14 in conjunction with Article 8. Article 8 is a dynamic provision that is continually undergoing renewed interpretation, and now the possibility is that citizenship cases could more readily be brought in and tested under this article. What is significant about this judgement is that lack of access to nationality can be seen to violate Article 8. It is implied that not granting nationality could violate the article ‘’because of its impact on the private live of an individual, which concept is wide enough to embrace aspects of a person’s social identity.’’ This implies that denying Genovese’s access to Maltese citizenship is impacting on him exercising his full social identity. Hence, this is violating his right to a private life, which ultimately is a violation of Article 8.

What does this mean for other cases regarding nationality that may not involve discriminatory nationality laws? The applicant in this case had another nationality and therefore it would be difficult to argue that he could not fully exercise his right to a social identity. However, if an individual is stateless, would that mean that there exists complete violation of their social identity, regardless of whether there was discrimination in the state’s law? Would citizenship cases of stateless individuals therefore be seen to independently violate Article 8 and be brought to the court on that basis, without also requiring the applicant to invoke article 14? Although the ambiguity surrounding this relevant paragraph in the judgement does not allow it to explicitly state that denial of citizenship is a violation of Article 8, the door appears to have been eased open.

Zahra Albarazi, MENA Project Coordinator, Statelessness Programme

Tunisia: Another step towards gender equality

2011-11-29T15:15:00.001+01:00

Tunisia is the second country in the MENA region after Morocco to withdraw all reservations to CEDAW. Decree 103 was signed by the President of the Transitional Government Fuad Almabza on the 24th of October 2011 - marking another significant breakthrough for the country towards gender equality.

Tunisia signed the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in 1985. CEDAW, often referred to as the international bill of rights for women, stipulates provisions regarding nationality in its Article 9. In the light of statelessness issues, this article is of high importance since it grants women equal rights with men with respect to the nationality of their children. This can reduce the number of cases of statelessness on a large scale given that Tunisian mothers can now pass their nationality to their children, whereas before it was almost impossible to do that without the request of the father.

Almost all states in the MENA region still maintain reservations to articles on nationality, marriage and family. The Tunisian citizenship law was amended several times in order to abolish the inequality between men and women. The first amendment came in 1993 and gave children born to Tunisian mothers and foreign fathers the right to obtain the Tunisian nationality. This could only be initiated after the parents submit a joint written approval while the child is under the age of 19. In 2002, a further amendment provided that a child would be given nationality based on a written request from the mother alone. This amendment was aimed at solving cases where the father passed away or disappeared, as well as the cases where the father is unknown or legally incompetent.

The last positive amendments of the Tunisian Code of Nationality took place in December 2010 through the adoption of Law n° 2010-55. The amendment abolishes and replaces article 6 of the Code of Nationality, which now reads that “the child born to a Tunisian father or Tunisian mother is considered to be Tunisian”. According to this amendment, the application procedure where the Tunisian nationality could be obtained only after the parents submit a joint written approval provided that the child is under the age of 19, is no longer required.

All of these steps ahead have been supported and in many cases pushed forward through women’s rights movements, probably one of the most active and strongest in the region. Among others, independent Tunisian women's NGOs in conjunction with research institutes and governmental organisations continue to work together in order to implement the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action, a global agreement on women's rights.

Despite the fact that Tunisia is a leader in granting women equal rights with men across the MENA region, as well as the important steps undertaken on these issues, their practical application still remains to be seen in the future. We hope that these amendments will not only make an impact on paper, but will make a real change through their implementation, and will heed other countries to follow.

The Statelessness Programme will continue to follow these developments as part of the MENA research project.

By Valeriia Cherednichenko, Intern, Statelessness Programme, Tilburg University

Who ’deserves’ to be stateless?

2011-11-04T13:01:00.000+01:00

In 1994, the State of Lebanon introduced a decree that would extend its citizenship to an estimated 200,000 individuals, approximately 80,000 of whom were reported to previously be stateless. This was meant to resolve the problem of individuals who had been overlooked at registration when the country’s citizenship laws were first developed and enforced and who were left as ‘maktoum alkayd,’ or undocumented. Unfortunately it would go on to become one of the most controversial decrees, immersed in the nation’s core preoccupation; confessional demographics. On October 2011, 17 years later, the President of the Republic and the Prime Minister signed a new decree that would allow the State to denaturalize individuals who benefited from the 1994 decree but did not actually ‘deserve’ to obtain Lebanese citizenship. The first step of this development is said to encompass ‘only’ 200 individuals, with ‘next’ steps pledged.

The motivation behind the 94 decree, as with any political act, has always been contested. The main contention was that it was ultimately used for sectarian and electoral purposes. Confessional and political forces did play a role in the decree but it was the authorities’ responsibility to take long-term effective measures to prevent this - and is not something that individuals, having established the last 17 years of their families lives as Lebanese citizens, should now suffer from. Alongside the stateless population who gained citizenship, many others came from an estimated 80 different countries. Although excluded from the decree - as this would have gone against the constitution – some Palestinians were believed to have naturalized, and it was argued that many Syrians fraudulently obtained Lebanese ID documents. Amongst the large communities of unregistered Lebanese, members of the same family who had all applied were each treated differently, often leaving a mix of stateless and Lebanese individuals amongst siblings. All these contentions resulted, in 2003, in a State Council decree being issued at the request of the Maronite League agreeing to revisit this naturalization effort. Because of this the legal effectiveness of this naturalized status has always been questionable, an effectiveness that will not progress under this new development

In light of this arbitrary, unregulated and politically sensitive atmosphere, concerns regarding the legitimacy and authority of the next steps of this new decree arise. The worry is that the mistakes committed by institutions or government bodies will, without strict regulations and protective frameworks in place, create new cases of statelessness and related problems seventeen years on. These problems may be even more difficult to address now that this naturalization effort has been largely unsuccessful and has made the situation more sensitive. The procedures attached to this new development have not been elaborated and raise many questions. How will fraudulent applications be reviewed? Why has it been stated that most of the 200 individuals selected are Christian - especially as the original controversy surrounded the argument that mostly Muslims had been naturalized? How will these individuals be selected? What are the ‘next steps’ in this series of withdrawal of citizenship? Most importantly, will there be regulations ensuring that those whose nationalities are withdrawn have another, effective, nationality?

Surprisingly, in a country where everything is shrouded in controversy and debated ferociously by opposing forces, there has, to date, been little debate or comment on this new development. To understand and address the controversies is important – but this new decree can only be a step backwards. The ambiguity over who ‘deserves’ it with no clarification as to the scope and extent of these series of withdrawals will be interpreted as opening an opportunity for discretionary practices. The extent to which this may lead to possible cases of statelessness is a huge worry in a state that does little to address or protect its current stateless population.

As part of its MENA research project, the Statelessness Programme will continue to monitor the developments and impacts of this new decree.

Zahra Albarazi, MENA Project Coordinator, Statelessness Programme

Beirut hosts statelessness dialogue

2011-10-26T18:06:00.000+02:00

Women and men from states across the Middle East and North Africa affected by gender discrimination in nationality law gathered last week to discuss their experiences. This exploration of the connection between gender discrimination and statelessness in the MENA region gave a window into the consequences of women not being able to fully benefit from their citizenship because of their gender. Organized by the UNHCR and CRTD-A, a Lebanese NGO that focuses on women’s rights, this joint initiative for a conference: Dialogue with Women on Gender Discrimination and Nationality, was held. Hearing the overwhelming impacts of statelessness from the families themselves- stepping away from the legal and political arguments - gave a moving insight into how living without a legal link to any State leads to a day to day struggle.

Having married a man from Mali, who shortly after having their child left, a mother from Syria told us how this had put her daughter in a hopeless situation. From not being able to obtain a graduation certificate despite having finished 4 years of university education to having no access to employment, she told how her child who was unable to obtain her nationality was living a life unlike her peers’. With inaccessibility to any Mali embassy, she is invisible with no prospects of legal marriage.

A lady married to an Egyptian who had passed away before being able to register their children also shared her story. Unable to give them her Jordanian nationality, she was left with bringing up six stateless children on her own. Being the only person in the household who can work and provide for the family, she committed her life to getting an education for her children. Her eldest son, who she struggled to get trained as a nurse, cannot access work in this field and hence is suffering from depression.

A child of a mother in a similar position, this time from Lebanon, talked about the direct influence this issue had on his life, his family’s life and the effect this had on the community around him. Despite being proud of his national sporting achievements and raising the Lebanese flag on an international stage, he cannot obtain Lebanese nationality papers. Two families have been rendered stateless, he cannot obtain the nationality of his country from his mother, his children cannot obtain it from his wife. The future of his children and the viscous cycle they will continue to be in was what worried him most.

These are just three of the many intricate stories shared. Talking to all the participants it was striking to hear the common consequences generations have had to face because the woman married a non-citizen. Hearing and seeing how practical obstacles caused such psychological effects on the lives of many often led to emotional scenes for all.

Another unpromising and discerning theme common between the individuals was the dependency on discretionary acts to help them with their problems. When asked how they had tried to change their position and what procedures they had taken to address them, there was always one answer. Wasta – having contacts in significant positions. They all felt that the only opportunity to get help by knowing the right people, and those who knew no-one had no hope of change. They were all aware of the social political and economic reasons behind the gender discrimination, but understanding the situation did not make it more acceptable.

Many representatives of women’s organizations across the MENA also joined the conference. On Wednesday they discussed initiatives and strategies they had implemented in their own countries to advocate for change. Yemeni, Moroccan and Algerian representatives explained the steps they had taken which resulted in reform - although not always exhaustive reform - in their own countries. These included cooperation with international bodies, religious leaders, media campaigns, and continued pressure - often for many years - on the political decision makers. There are many types of discrimination across much of the legislation in the region, but none so direct as male-dependent nationality. Often achieving change required changing societal perspectives before approaching legislative reform.

There were periods where the affected participants expressed hopelessness and lacked any real faith in future changes. Uncertainty of what the future held for their families angered and saddened everyone present. Stories varied, details and procedures changed. But the suffering between the individuals was the same. All due to a piece of paper they could not obtain. All due to institutional gender discrimination.

Zahra Albarazi, MENA Project Coordinator, Statelessness Programme

The stubborn cloak of legal invisibility

2011-10-03T09:15:00.000+02:00

In the context of the gripping tales of Harry Potter, the invisibility cloak is a magical object. It offers Harry the opportunity to enjoy some innocent adolescent mischief, while it also provides a snug layer of protection when his life is in danger. This is undeniably the invisibility of childhood fantasy and part of its charm and security lies in Harry’s ability to cloak himself in it, or reveal himself, at will. As such, it is difficult to think of a starker contrast with the phenomenon of legal invisibility, which imposes itself uninvited on its victims, is stubbornly resistent to efforts to lift its cloak, creates vulnerability rather than protection and can destroy the innocence of childhood.

I have just returned from a conference in Belgrade, organised by Praxis – an NGO which is to be praised for both the high quality of its work and its incredible dedication to the human rights issues it seeks to address. For many years now, Praxis has been pushing for a solution to the situation of people in Serbia who lack legal personhood, for whom it has coined the evocative and fitting phrase “legally invisible”. They are people who lack any official recognition from any state authorities of their existence and of their identity. No birth certificate. No ID card. No citizenship document. Nothing. When trying to exercise any right under the law, they are confronted with the problem that legally, they don’t exist – they are invisible to the law. As such, they cannot exercise rights to health care, social welfare, housing, education, they cannot vote in elections, get married legally, register their children or appear as parties before courts or other state bodies, etc. Without recognition of the facts of their birth, or indeed, existence, these “legally invisible” people will often also find themselves at risk of statelessness, because their position under the applicable nationality laws cannot be formally established.

Praxis’ reports and a short documentary film which they have just put together (and we hope will be shared online), use a range of individual case studies to illustrate the ways in which people become legally invisible and why it proves to be such a difficult problem to shake. Here are two examples from recent reports:

Djulijan and Senad Case – Djulijan was born in 1999 in Kosovo Polje and had never been registered into birth registry book. He was admitted to hospital in Belgrade in 2006 using a “borrowed” health card. As a “legally invisible” person, Djulijan could not obtain health insurance, so his parents were forced to “borrow” a health card from their cousin Senad, born in Kragujevac in 2001 and registered into birth registry book […] In August 2006, Djulijan died in hospital, but the fact of death registered into the birth and death registry books was that of Senad, not Djulijan. […] Today, Senad is seven years old and lives as a “legally deceased” person, so he will not be able to enrol in school, receive medical treatment if necessary, or exercise other rights. Djulijan, on the other hand, lived and died as a “legally invisible” person.

Sabaheta Case – Sabaheta was born approximately 24 years ago, at home, as a child from a common-law [unregistered, informal] marriage. Her mother Nurija abandoned her soon after and went to Germany. Sabaheta grew up with her grandfather Miftarem. Today, she lives as a “legally invisible” person with her common-law husband and three children in a Roma settlement in Novi Sad. Sabaheta is not sure whether she was born in Montenegro or in Kosovo. Apart from her mother’s name, she is not acquainted with any other data about her parents. She neither has relatives from whom she could perhaps get these data and obtain mother’s documents. The only recorded evidence on Sabaheta’s existence is a letter of the Social Welfare Centre Niksic, Montenegro, sent to the Social Welfare Centre Zrenjanin in 2006 in which it was stated, inter alia, that Sabaheta is approximately 17 years old and not registered in birth registry book. Besides, she also possesses a certificate confirming that she is not registered in birth registry book in Niksic.

In its reports, Praxis goes on to explain the steps that it has helped people to take in order to establish their legal identity and lift the cloak of invisibility. More often than not, the legal proceedings they initiate are to no avail as the administrative authorities demand a whole host of substantiating documents that the applicant simply cannot produce. The procedures can also drag on for years and there are plenty of examples of legally invisible people submitting a request for so-called “subsequent registration” (i.e. late registration into the birth registry as the key step that formalises their legal existence), which is refused, appealed, sent back to the first instance body for review, refused again, appealed, etc etc. It can be heartbreaking work for the legal assistance team at Praxis and it is mystifying to hear how difficult it is to obtain official recognition from the authorities that a person is indeed living and breathing in front of them.

Unfortunately, it is not only in the small state of Serbia where people are cast into legal invisibility. In my own first encounter with Praxis, at an event on statelessness in the spring of 2010, I slipped into an easy conversation with their inspirational Executive Director Ivanka Kostic. We quickly discovered that the issues she was confronted with bore an uncanny similarity to the situation I had discovered in Lebanon, where I was working at the time. In Lebanon, there is also a significant problem of legal invisibility, affecting a group described in Arabic as Maktoum al kayd, or “unregistered”. In a 2007 newspaper article written by Fatima Rida, the description of one such case is telling:

Malik has vanished from under the bridge where he used to sleep. His disappearance was accompanied with uncertain details that eventually turned into negative signals, especially as it became certain that he has not gone to jail for the “eight” time. “We let him down…so he left and never came back”, bitterly spoke the social worker as she spoke of Malik who frequented her office at a social service center in the southern suburb of Beirut two years ago. The young man had promised her to stop mutilating himself every time the police confronted him “while he waited for an identity card that would shield him from the torture of detention and jail for the eighth time on the charge of homelessness.” He was “accustomed” to pulling a razor he constantly kept on him to cut his hands and legs to keep the police officers away from him because “no one wants me to die in his arms, so they let me go” as he used to say. On the last occasion, the social worker had to inform him that his legal motion to obtain him an identity card was rejected despite all efforts. She adds, “he looked at us as if he knew the answer. Then he left…and vanished after a another clash with the security forces.” [translation from Arabic text published in Al Hayat]

It is unusual for the media to report on this phenomenon and the situation in Lebanon has not received much press since this piece was printed. However, by strange coincidence, on the day that I was in Belgrade, discussing Serbia’s invisible people with Praxis and colleagues from across Europe, a new article appeared in a Lebanese newspaper about the legally invisible there and their exposure to statelessness. There is still much that needs to be understood about the situation in Lebanon and in Serbia, in order to get to the bottom of why these cases are proving to be so difficult to resolve and why the cloak of legal invisibility is such a stubborn one. And of course there is also a wider and pressing question: who else will Ivanka or I find outselves sitting next to in meetings in years to come, only to discover new stories of legal invisibility in other countries around the world?

Laura van Waas, Senior Researcher and Manager, Statelessness Programme

GUEST BLOG: Stateless in Zimbabwe, the Only Country They’ve Ever Called Home

2011-09-27T14:13:00.003+02:00

At a time when the country was known as the “breadbasket of Africa”, hundreds of thousands of persons migrated to Zimbabwe, mostly as farm labourers from neighboring countries in Southern Africa. In the initial blush of post-independence, the Zimbabwean Constitution of 1983 acknowledged this migrant population by allowing citizenship to flow from birth on the territory to children whose parents were citizens, ordinary residents or became permanent residents after their birth.

By the year 2000, it was estimated that around 30% of the two million farm workers in Zimbabwe, and their families, were of foreign descent. In Zimbabwe in total, an estimated 1.5 million persons had links to Malawi, Zambia and Mozambique and up to 12,000 Zimbabweans were reportedly of Indian extraction. By this stage, these were mostly second- or third-generation immigrants. As a result of their family’s long period of residence in the country, and their being born on the territory, these descendants were entitled to Zimbabwean nationality under the country’s Constitution and the Citizenship of Zimbabwe Act.

However, also by the year 2000, the political and economic climate in Zimbabwe had darkened. For the first time, Zimbabwe’s President Mugabe and his party, ZANU-PF, were suffering from cracks in their traditionally solid support-base. Facing the possibility of significant losses in the up-coming 2002 elections, ZANU-PF turned on the population it perceived as the key opponent to its regime; white Zimbabweans. The party launched an aggressive land reform programme, aimed primarily at disenfranchising white commercial farm-owners of the income that was perceived as the financial backbone of the MDC (the main opposition political party).

A less publicized reform which ZANU-PF pushed through Parliament was the Citizenship Amendment Act of 2001. This legislation provided that a citizen of Zimbabwe who, at the date of commencement of the Amendment, is also a citizen of a foreign country would automatically lose their citizenship unless, within six months, they were able to renounce their foreign citizenship in accordance with the law of that foreign country.

Again, the main aim of this reform was to disenfranchise white Zimbabweans, a good deal of whom were still in possession of British passports. Thus, initially, the Director General applied the Amendment only to this group. As a result, only Europeans were targeted by media campaigns advertising the new law and the deadline for applicants wishing to retain their citizenship. Moreover, the publicity campaign had a limited geographic reach – it is reported that only persons in Harare were at all aware of the new law and its impending deadline.

Before long, however, the new law was applied to all migrant populations, as the increasingly intolerant government became suspicious of anyone with foreign ties. The application of the new provision also came to affect the large community of migrant farm workers, for example, who had worked under white farmers for generations and were perceived as being sympathetic to their political perspective.

Problematically, however, this extension of the application of the Amendment to all Zimbabwean citizens with foreign heritage was instigated in practice only after the six month deadline had already lapsed. By this stage, these groups could no longer take any action to prevent the loss of their Zimbabwean citizenship by operation of law.

Furthermore, Registrar General Tobaiwa Mudede has interpreted the Amendment to cover not only actual dual citizens, but also anyone with a possible claim to citizenship elsewhere. Thus, anyone who is of foreign extraction, and who did not comply with the six-month deadline for renouncing this presumed foreign nationality, is assumed to have automatically forfeited their Zimbabwean citizenship in 2002.

Indeed, still today, many persons who have a valid Zimbabwean ID document trundle down to their local Department of Home Affairs to apply for the renewal of their passports or identity cards, only to be informed that they are no longer citizens of Zimbabwe. Those who approach the Zimbabwean department of Home Affairs for any services connected with citizenship are now required to submit a “long” birth certificate (which lists the names and nationalities of both parents), and anyone with even one foreign parent is informed that they lost their Zimbabwean nationality in 2002.

The only option available to the hundreds and thousands who were blindsided by this sweeping exercise in denationalisation is to apply for resumption of citizenship. This process still requires conformity with the Registrar-General’s imaginative interpretation of the law, however, in that anyone with a foreign-born parent is required to renounce their claim to that nationality in accordance with the law of that country. The process of renunciation is expensive and lengthy, and in many cases there is in fact no basis for renunciation under the foreign law; either the applicant lacks sufficient proof of their foreign ties or has in fact lost all rights to nationality in the country of their heritage.

Simplified, the problem is this: those who have a foreign parent are assumed by the Zimbabwean administration to have a claim to this foreign nationality. But the one is not a logical corollary of the other; it is quite possible that one is born and raised in Zimbabwe by a Zimbabwean mother and a Malawian father, for example, without ever having accessed Malawian nationality or even visited Malawi. Under Malawian citizenship law, a person born abroad to a Malawian citizen must exercise their right to Malawian citizenship before the age of 21 and Malawian authorities do not accept a Zimbabwean birth certificate as proof of Malawian descent. Hence, a 22 year old Zimbabwean who possesses only a Zimbabwean birth certificate will never be able to access Malawian citizenship. He is practically incapable, thus, of renouncing this citizenship. And, as a result, he is equally incapable of accessing his Zimbabwean citizenship. He is stateless in the country of his mother, the country of his birth and the only country he has ever lived in.

The rural farm-working community, in particular, faced a myriad of such barriers. Due to high levels of illiteracy they were largely undocumented and had limited access to information regarding the changes to their birth right to Zimbabwean nationality. Many experience great difficulty in gaining access to the consular services of their heritage country; either for lack of documentary proof of a claim, transport to the consulates or resources to pay for the processing of their renunciation.

In 2003 a further Amendment provided some relief – it allowed anyone who is a descendant of an unskilled migrant worker who came to Zimbabwe from a Southern African state prior to 1980, and who has resided in Zimbabwe continuously from birth, to qualify for resumption and certification of citizenship. Regrettably, however, the requirements listed in this amendment exclude a large number of those affected by the original amendment and its application. And although the Department of Home Affairs’ implementation of the law has been repeatedly and successfully challenged in Zimbabwean courts, the practice continues to date. For example, in 2002, the High Court ruled in favour of Judith Todd (daughter of former Rhodesian Prime Minister Sir Garﬁeld Todd) whose citizenship had been withdrawn as a result of her failure to renounce her claim to New Zealand citizenship. The registrar-general asserted that Judith Todd ought to have renounced New Zealand citizenship as a result of her father’s birth on New Zealand territory. The court, however, ruled that she had not lost her Zimbabwean citizenship, and ordered that her passport be restored [Todd v. Registrar-General of Citizenship and Another (HC 55/2002) [2002] ZWHHC 76, 7 May 2002].

In practice, however, the Director General respects court orders such as this only as regards the individual which the court order relates directly to. This restricts the applicability of jurisprudence on the withdrawal of citizenship to those individuals who were successful in court only. Hence, only those who are in a position to approach the courts are likely to find redress.

In Zimbabwe, those affected are completely marginalized, their identity documents are seized. The shock of this scramble for nationality has sent ripples of destabilisation throughout the region; undocumented and denationalised Zimbabweans are looking outside for assistance and finding the mechanisms for the protection of stateless persons on the continent sorely lacking.

Guest authors: Rosalind Elphick and Jessica George, Legal Counselors working on Lawyers for Human Rights Statelessness Project, South Africa.

The views expressed are those of the authors.

Statelessness as a utopia

2011-09-21T08:32:00.002+02:00

‘My own wish is to be a citizen of the world, to be a fellow-citizen to all men – a pilgrim, better still.’

Desiderius Erasmus, letter to Huldrych Zwingli, 1522.

Statelessness is a problem. All of us, academics, practitioners, activists, and even artists, who work with stateless persons, are sharply aware of the harsh reality of statelessness. Statelessness means instability, poverty, discrimination and despair. We work with the ‘problem’ of statelessness, because the human suffering takes priority over anything else.

But for me, statelessness is more than just a problem. There is something about the idea (and not the reality!) of statelessness that inspires me, that is ultimately romantic, and completely unrealistic. It is something vaguely communist, and maybe even anarchist. It is an idea of an individual who is beyond the state, who does not need the state. A stateless individual is beyond nationalism, wars and borders, not needing to belong anywhere and therefore welcome everywhere. Do you recognise this idea?

The birthday wishes from the Statelessness Programme Campaign put me in a dreamy mood. They addressed important issues – I can relate to all of them, and I wish all these wishes come true. Most of these wishes were policy objectives, lobbying plans and calls for activism. Many of them made me think: ‘Yes, I can really do something about this! If we join hands with all these dedicated people, we can make this wish come true!’. But there was one specific wish which I thought was a wish in the true sense of the word – a wish which cannot be realised within the practical limits of the world, and where you need involvement of some heavy magic:

‘I wish that statelessness soon only means there are no more states’ (a wish from Stichting STIL in Utrecht)

This is the wish I would make if I met a little fairy with a magic wand, or got hold of a Aladdin’s Lamp. It is my dream of a stateless utopia.

I wish sometimes that all people were stateless, and happy in their statelessness. I wish we didn’t need states – neither for practical purposes, nor for psychological reasons. I wish the world could be organised without borders, and individuals had something better to base their confidence on than their national identity. I don’t know how this can ever be true, or whether all my fellow human beings would agree to that, but I can dream, can’t I?

I wonder sometimes whether this image of a stateless utopia actually motivates me to help stateless persons. It is so far away from the reality of my every day working routine. The primary motivation is probably compassion to fellow human beings in great need of legal advice, but there are many categories of individuals who are in difficult legal situations, such as the refugees, the homeless, the ‘illegals’ and so on. There is also, of course, pure intellectual curiosity towards the legal complexities around the phenomenon of statelessness, but English tort law is not less complex, nor is the issue of animal rights. When I think of what makes statelessness so special for me that I am prepared to dedicate four years of my life to study it in a PhD project, and spend my free time giving legal advice to stateless persons, I come back to this romantic, impossible and nothing-to-do-with-reality image. While in my perfect world statelessness means the lack of a state in the life of an individual, I see how in reality statelessness (ironically!) leads to extreme dependence of individuals on states, and I want to do something about it. Even though I will never witness a stateless utopia, I do want to make the life of stateless persons a little less ‘state-full’, so that it does not revolve so much around papers, stamps, and moods of civil servants. I want stateless persons to be more independent, and more empowered in their relations with states.

Even though my dream is nothing but a dream, it clearly shapes the way I see my research. I don’t want to eliminate the problem of statelessness. Instead, I want statelessness to no longer be a problem. I am more interested in researching the issue of protecting stateless persons, rather than eliminating statelessness.

I would of course do anything within my power to help a stateless person to acquire the citizenship of some state, and cease to be stateless, since (alas!) it is often the best way to secure their access to basic rights. But while I would be doing that, I would hope that one day there would be no need for citizenship.

Katja Swider, Research Advice Service Coordinator, Statelessness Programme

“Expat Nationality Services”: a potential money-maker?

2011-09-15T13:59:00.000+02:00

Sitting on the plane home from Geneva, where I’ve been helping to teach staff at UNHCR’s headquarters about statelessness, seems the perfect opportunity to write a new blog and share a rather novel idea that actually surfaced during the workshop… going into business providing “expat nationality services”.

The offices of UNHCR, like those of any other international organisations or multinational companies, are a melting pot of people from different parts of the world, holding different nationalities. Over the course of the years that they have spent living and working abroad many have also met and married someone from a different country than their own. Regular rotation from one office – and one country – to another, adds further complexity to the family life of many, with children born in yet another location, sometimes far from either of the parents’ countries of origin. When embarking on a training about statelessness, the intricate web of ties that such international professionals have formed with a whole array of countries creates a ready interest in the issue of nationality and conseqently also the lack of it. Indeed, it is often the case that they have already, more than the average person, reflected on the question of where their nationality comes from and what it means. Moreover, a significant number of participants in such workshops have already personally encountered one type of legal anomaly in the field of nationality: dual citizenship. They themselves, their partners and/or children, will commonly have accummulated two or more nationalities thanks to the path that they have taken in life. As a result, there is a natural curiosity about the opposing anomaly of statelessness.

Given this starting point, one of the ways that I like to introduce the phenomenon of statelessness is by presenting a case which illustrates the lottery-like effect that nationality laws can sometimes have. Since each state can, in principle, set its own rules for the conferral of nationality, statelessness can arise from a straightforward and often unintended conflict between the nationality laws of different countries. Simple misfortune in the circumstances of birth (in nationality terms, that is) can leave a person with neither the nationality of their father, nor their mother nor their country of birth and thus render them stateless. For example, the father may be from a country that does not allow him to transmit his nationality if his child is born out of wedlock and the parents may indeed be unmarried; while the mother is perhaps from a country that does not allow women to pass on nationality to their children at all; and the child may be born in a country that does not recognise this fact as sufficient for the acquisition of nationality. Then, the child will be left stateless, unless the all-important safeguards that we work hard to promote are in place in one or other of the nationality laws. At the same time though, a very slight change in the circumstances of birth – parents who are married, a woman who is allowed to transmit nationality, birth within a state that does grant citizenship to everyone born on its soil – and the person can swing from being stateless, to enjoying single, dual or even multiple nationality. In other words, it can take very little for a negative conflict of laws to become a positive conflict of laws.

The fact that someone’s nationality status can balance on a knife-edge like this is fascinating, especially to people who have, themselves, had to navigate different nationality laws to discover how they or their family members might be affected. While many international professionals and expats are able to take advantage of the opportunity to collect several nationalities for themselves and their children, the reality is that the risk of statelessness also looms over them. Consider, for instance, the nationality laws that allow nationality to be withdrawn from anyone who takes up residence abroad for an extended period of time. Consider the nationality laws that require consular registration, or even return to the country, before any children born to a national abroad are able to secure their father or mother’s nationality. And consider the nationality laws that limit the transmission of nationality to children born outside the country to the first generation only, leaving the second generation in a potentially uncertain position. As mobility increases and the expat community grows worldwide, it becomes ever more important to understand the impact of these and other complexities of different state’s nationality laws, working alone or in conjunction with others.

This observation made and one or two in the room expressing concern at the precariousness of their own or their children’s nationality status, given the ins and outs of the nationality laws which apply to them, one response that I found striking was this: perhaps the highly sophisticated expat services industry should branch out into a new area? Indeed. After all, as important as it is to find the right housing, safely ship your treasured belongings, import your own car, understand a new tax system or locate a new doctor all are… some competent advice on nationality laws and procedures certainly wouldn’t go amiss, to make sure you don’t forget something vital like consular registration which could otherwise cause you or a family member to be cast adrift and join the ranks of the stateless. This may even be a money-making opportunity, using nationality expertise to advise those who can afford to outsource dealing with the issue and maybe injecting that back into projects that provide similar legal assistance to those who cannot pay for such a service. While the high-flying, professional, expat situation is an interesting one, the reality is that the situation of other migrants – those less well paid, less well educated, empowered or connected and those whose situation is all the more vulnerable because it is undocumented or irregular – poses a far greater challenge in the quest to avoid statelessness. Maybe using one to subsidise the other is an effective way forward.

Laura van Waas, Senior Researcher and Manager, Statelessness Programme

GUEST BLOG: Statelessness and the European Court of Human Rights - the Kuric case

2011-09-05T10:18:00.002+02:00

Whilst the 50^th anniversary of the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness is a time for celebrating achievements in combating statelessness, it is important not to forget the lack of parties to both the 1954 Convention on the Status of Stateless Persons and the 1961 Convention. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has been mandated by the UN General Assembly to prevent and reduce the phenomenon and to assist individuals under the 1961 Convention. However no judicial or monitoring body exists specifically to hold states accountable for breaching their obligations and to develop principles on statelessness. In these circumstances, the international and regional human rights mechanisms, if effectively utilised, have real potential in preventing statelessness and offering redress to stateless persons.

For some time stateless applicants have been bringing claims to the European Court of Human Rights relating to alleged abuses suffered as a consequence of their lack of nationality. However the Court is new to examining whether the causes of statelessness or the condition itself violate the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). The case of Kurić and Others v. Slovenia (No. 26828/06) provides a valuable opportunity for the Court to do so, but its Chamber Judgment highlights a number of teething problems in this regard. On 21 February 2011 the case was referred to the Grand Chamber. This means that the Court will examine the case once more and make a fresh judgment.

Following the break-up of the Former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) federal citizenship ceased to exist and each successor state granted citizenship to those who had its republican citizenship. This resulted in statelessness for persons who, for example, could not prove their republican citizenship or had failed to renew it. The Kurić case concerns the argument that the applicants have been arbitrarily deprived of the possibility of acquiring citizenship of the new Slovenian State since 1991, as well as the hardship endured as a result of the erasure of their names from the register of permanent residents in 1992. As a result four of the applicants, who were not nationals of another SFRY successor State and were unable to obtain permanent resident status, can not acquire Slovenian nationality and remain stateless despite having been born in Slovenia or having lived there most of their lives.

In its 2010 Chamber Judgment the Court held that Article 8 (right to a private and family life) alone and in conjunction with Article 13 (right to an effective remedy) ECHR had been violated due to the continual refusal of the Slovenian authorities to regulate the situation of the applicants by issuing residents permits, which constituted an unjustified interference in their right to a private and family life. The Court further held that the non-implementation of decisions of the Slovenian Constitutional Court left the applicants without an effective remedy. The most significant result from a general statelessness viewpoint is that the Court examined the arbitrary deprivation of legal status, and to a certain extent the resulting statelessness, under existing ECHR rights despite the Government’s submission that the regulation of nationality is not included in the ECHR.

Although this gives hope about the Court’s potential approach to statelessness, there are a number of problems with the Judgment. Firstly, the Court held that one of the stateless applicants lost his victim status (under Article 34 ECHR) upon receiving a permanent resident permit. This assessment prevented the Court from examining whether the continuous effects of statelessness violated the applicant’s human rights. It implies that the granting of a permanent resident permit is enough to remedy the problems faced by a stateless person and that the granting of nationality is not necessary in that regard. Secondly, the Court referred to the applicants as de facto rather than de jure stateless. The Court provides no reason why it labelled them this way and does not define de facto statelessness, which indicates possible confusion. This is significant considering debates about whether de facto statelessness exists and the fact there is no agreed definition of it under international or regional law for the Court to use in classifying the applicants as such. Thirdly, in discussing regional and international conventions on statelessness the Court fails to acknowledge the 1954 Convention to which

Slovenia

is a party, but discusses the 1961 Convention. This could be because the Court was focusing on the causes of statelessness rather than the status of stateless persons. Nonetheless, if Slovenia is not party to the 1961 Convention and it does not reflect international custom, then the discussion of it in the context of Slovenia, whilst interesting background information, is irrelevant. The consideration of the 1954 Convention by the Court may have meant it focused more on the negative and continuing effects of statelessness, thus not leading it to decide that the granting of a permanent resident permit is enough to extinguish victim status and to rectify the problems of the stateless applicants. For example, the granting of a permanent resident permit may provide access to social rights but it will not necessarily prevent a stateless person from being socially excluded and it will not provide the sense of belonging which is derived from having a nationality.

On 6 July 2011 the Grand Chamber held its hearing. Among those who submitted written third party interventions underlining the link between statelessness and state succession, were UNHCR, the Serbian Government and the Open Society Initiative. Interestingly, the majority of the applicants were present and the Court’s President even requested that the Italian authorities grant a special travel document to one of the stateless applicants. This showed the great importance of the case and provided a vital human face to the issue of statelessness in the Courtroom. The applicants’ representatives stressed the difficulties faced by erased persons in obtaining permanent resident status and the continuing consequences of the erasure, including the hardship suffered by the applicants due to unemployment and the lack of healthcare. This showed an interesting link between the civil and political rights contained in the ECHR and the economic and social rights of stateless persons. The Slovenian Government, inter alia, argued that it had made attempts to rectify the situation and stated that it was not its fault if the applicants failed to take steps towards regulating their own status. Furthermore,

Slovenia

argued that the erasure did not cause statelessness and that permanent resident permits should be enough to regularise the situation of the applicants.

The Grand Chamber’s Judgment is pending so it remains to be seen whether the Court will depart from its Chamber Judgment. The writer hopes that the Court will take the opportunity to learn from its mistakes and strengthen its jurisprudence on statelessness. This is not only crucial for proving the ability of human rights mechanisms to protect stateless persons and for the evolution of regional and international law on statelessness, but most importantly it should offer redress for the applicants in Kurić and possibly take a step towards regularising the position of Slovenia’s thousands of erased persons.

Guest author: Claire Balding, LLM in Public International Law (Nottingham), Intern at the UNHCR Representation to the European Institutions in Strasbourg.
All opinions expressed are those of the writer.

Click here to access the Chamber Judgement.

Birthday wishes are just the beginning of the journey...

2011-08-31T15:54:00.005+02:00

After an evening spent baking and an early morning start, the 50^th anniversary of the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness Birthday Wishes Tour finally kicked off in Utrecht. The eager team of four, two from the Tilburg law School Statelessness Programme and two from UNCHR, commenced at 9.30am with a meeting with STIL, a local NGO that provides support to stateless individuals. We then continued on to the Landelijke Ongedocumenteerden Steunpunt (national foundation supporting undocumented people), where we were presented with an exceptional, hand-made birthday card in honour of the anniversary. Here, Evelien Vehof, one of the journalist behind the Citizens of Nowhere project, also joined us to make a wish. Spending the morning with individuals who work on the ground providing social support and highlighting the plight of stateless persons gave us our initial insight into the eagerness of the people working directly on the issue to push the agenda of combating statelessness forward.

With the birthday cupcakes delicious reputation developing and some poignant birthday wishes gathered, we left Utrecht (on time!) making our way to the next stop; Amsterdam. We commenced our tour in the capital meeting with Vluchtelingenwerk, Hamerslag & van Haren lawyers and Amnesty International. These three organizations, already involved in advocacy and research on stateless groups and issues related to them, all showed their commitment to be involved in a unified national effort in working on the issue in the near-future. Eduard Nazarski, Director of Amnesty in the Netherlands, summed up the overall sentiment well in his wish… “that governments combat statelessness – everyone has the right to a nationality!”

Dokters van de Werald then went on to give us an interesting perspective on the difficulties of stateless groups accessing basic medical rights, and added their wish to the growing pile. We were then extremely surprised to be treated to music, song and dance by the people at the Wereldhuis, our last stop in Amsterdam, who we were very sad to leave. Here we were privileged to meet a committed group of individuals providing help to anyone who needed it in their community, regardless of nationality or legal status, and to meet several stateless people who had themselves suffered from the inaction of the authorities to solve their situation.

After fewer than eight – rather rushed, cake-filled meetings - we were already developing a more detailed picture of statelessness in the Netherlands. The mix of organizations we were meeting with, lawyers working on individual cases, international NGOs with an understanding of the global phenomenon, and community support organizations that helped us put faces and real-life stories behind this universal problem, were together sketching a colourful map of the problems stateless groups face and the steps needed to help.

The genuine enthusiasm and commitment of the people we were meeting provided the energy the team needed to continue the frenzied tour. So, despite hunger kicking in, there was no time to waste as we re-bundled into the car where our dedicated volunteer driver navigated us towards The Hague - to everyone’s surprise – only very slightly behind schedule.

We started our stay in the Hague at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs where we met jointly with Lionel Veer, the Dutch Human Rights Ambassador, and Willem van Genugten, the dean of Tilburg Law School (which hosts the Statelessness Programme). We were very pleased with the interest they showed in the ongoing research initiatives on statelessness and to hear them pledge their support for furthering the advocacy efforts that will stem from the research done in this field. Underway to a brief stop at UNHCR’s own office in the Hague, where we delivered a cake to Rene Bruin, the head of office, we added to our growing collection of hopes and aspirations a number of birthday wishes that were being sent in from people abroad who were not able to join us in the tour.

We were then pleased to be received by Jan Pronk, former Development Cooperation Minister and UN Special Representative in Sudan at his home. We sat with him and his wife in their delightful garden, discussing at some length the legal limbo that stateless individuals find themselves. We collected their wish and proceeded to end our tour with a warm reception by a team of senior advisors at the OSCE High Commissioner for National Minorities who shared their understanding of issues of stateless communities throughout Europe, adding a new dimension to the otherwise largely Dutch-focused day. The HCNM’s wish: “700,000 stateless persons in the OSCE region are counting on the Statelessness convention to end their exclusion. Ratify and implement it!”

After this last meeting the birthday wishes campaign continued with the team collapsing in a café and finally blowing out their own candles, tasting the cupcakes and making their own wishes. All involved were genuinely surprised and gratified by the reception and passion we repeatedly met over the course of our frantic day on the road. It was clear that the issue of statelessness was a rising and enduring concern for those we met, while advocacy opportunities were disappointingly limited due to a lack of information on the overall situation in the country and of awareness of the issue generally.

Everyone encountered was furthermore keen to join the Statelessness Programme in their official launching event, Voiceless, Faceless, Stateless, which will be the next step in raising awareness of the issue and further strengthening ties between the organizations involved in order to advance efforts on all levels. This will be held on November 3^rd and will also be a good opportunity to discuss the findings of the UNCHR report which details the humanitarian and legal situation of statelessness in the Netherlands, which will be officially launched on October 31st. All the organizations, through their own capacity, have been dealing with issues of statelessness, and all were confronted with obstacles while trying to address the problem. This varied from finding difficulties in helping stateless children access vaccination programmes in Rotterdam to dialogue on how the ‘’legal stay’ requirement in Dutch law which violated the very convention we were celebrating was obstructing legal solutions. These and other topics were noted down for the agenda of future meetings with to discuss in greater depth what response is needed to better address statelessness in the Netherlands.

The only regret of the day was that we were not able to spend more time talking to and learning from the individuals and organizations we met. This will have to wait until the next opportunity to sit around a table with one another, perhaps over more cake, as we take the next step in the challenging journey towards tackling statelessness and turning some of these wishes into reality. Watch this space as the journey continues…

For your enjoyment: a list of all the wishes collected!

Wishes from around the Netherlands on 30 August 2011

OCSE High Commissioner on National minorities (The Hague)

I wish… 700,000 stateless persons in the OSCE region are counting on the Statelessness convention to end their exclusion. Ratify and implement it!

Amnesty International (Amsterdam)

Eduard Nazarski: I wish… Governments would combat statelessness. Every individual has a right to a nationality!

Annemarie Busser: I wish… Nationality forms the access to a lot of fundamental human rights; stateless people should never be put in immigration detention

Jan Pronk (The Hague)

I wish… The Netherlands government complying with the 1961 Convention, and strip the legal stay condition

Evelien Vehof, Citizens of Nowhere (Utrecht)I wish… For nation states to use their power to take care of the stateless and recognize then as citizens

Dutch Refugee Council (Amsterdam)

I wish… Its about people, not about borders! Don’t let people be the victims of conflicts between states!

Lionel Veer, Human Rights Ambassador of the Netherlands (The Hague)

I wish… This campaign will help solve the problem and help the ‘victims’

UNHCR (The Hague)
I wish… All Stateless persons be recognized and can start life again

Landelijk Ongedocumenteerden Steunpunt (Utrecht)

That the statelessness convention will be used more effectively in the Netherlands.

Dokters van de Wereld (Amsterdam)

I wish… That stateless have better access to health, more info that stateless children have the right to be vaccinated

Willem Van Genugten, Tilburg Law School (The Hague)
I wish… That much more attention will be given to an much more REAL ACTION will be undertaken in order to tackle the problem

STIL (Utrecht)

I wish… That statelessness soon only means there are no more states. No one is illegal!

Neil Blomhous, Lawyer with Hamerslag & van Haren (Amsterdam)
I wish… That the Dutch authorities would approach the problem of statelessness with an attitude towards solving the problem instead of dumping it on the (de facto) stateless person

International Organisation for Migration (The Hague)

I wish… that all countries become signatory and abide to the convention of 1954 relating to the Status of Statelessness Persons and the convention of 1961 on the Reduction of Statelessness
　　
Wishes collected at the Wereldhuis (Amsterdam), including from stateless people

I wish… All humans to be respected as such, regardless of their nationality or beliefs

I wish… That one day we all walk through boundaries without any questions of documents but love

I wish… The Dutch government fulfils her noble promise in allowing the statelessness sufferings and see them not as numbers but as human beings!

I wish… The statelessness people will be recognized to be known to enjoy a better life at wherever countries they are in

I wish… That justice will always exist

I wish… The Netherlands can become a home country for these people who are stuck here because no country accepts them

　
Wishes from the ‘birthday wishes campaign team’

Femke Joordens, UNHCR Nederland

I wish… No country should tolerate that children are born stateless　

Laura van Waas, Statelessness Programme

I wish… That over 100 states pledge to concrete action to address statelessness at the ministerial conference this December

Zahra Albarazi, Statelessness Programme

I wish… That states recognise and ensure the fundamental human rights of stateless persons and not see nationality as prerequisite for enjoying rights

Karel Hendriks, statelessness researcher for UNHCR

I wish… That all states would establish a dedicated statelessness procedure. After all, statelessness is a legal fact

Mark van Waas, dedicated driver for the campaign
I wish… That states who don’t feel statelessness is a big issue wake up and tackle the issue

Wishes sent in from others around the world

Sebastian Kohn, OSI (New York)
I wish… To end statelessness amongst children through committed law and policy
reforms. And follow @statelessness

Amal Dechickera, Equal rights trust (London)

I wish… Reduction of statelessness is as important today as it was 50 years ago. We wish that in 50 years time there will be no need for a convention.

Praxis (Serbia)

I wish… Every person in the world could have a state!

Nick Oakeshott, Asylum Aid (London)

I wish… That all European states establish Statelessness Determination procedures following the excellent examples set by France and Spain.

Priyanka Motaparthy, HRW (New York)

I wish… For stateless biduns in Kuwait, after fifty years of waiting, to get citizenship through a fair and just procedure.

Maureen Lynch, International Observatory on Statelessness

I wish… This anniversary year, equal attention and efforts would be paid to ensuring nationality rights for all the worlds stateless people.

Cynthia Morel, Independent Consultant working on nationality
Over the course of the last 50 years, the Convention has enabled countless individuals to shed the shackles of statelessness, leading to full and fruitful lives. While this anniversary is cause for optimism, let us not forget the millions who remain at the margins of society, in desperate need of recognition.

Campaign tools: cake and explanatory card

Eduard Nazarski, Amnesty International

Jan Pronk, former Dev. Coop. Minister

Human Rights Ambassador Lionel Veer and Tilburg Law School's Willem van Genugten

A beautiful card hand-crafted by the staff at LOS in Utrecht

Mirjam Koppe, Dokters van de Wereld

Staff at the OSCE High Commissioner for National Minorities

Wishes and music greeted us at the Wereldhuis in Amsterdam

Update: inspirational wishes for statelessness

2011-08-30T22:14:00.000+02:00

What a day! Here's a sneak preview of just some of the inspiring people who took the time to make a birthday wish for the Statelessness Convention. A massive thank you to everyone who got involved. Full report to follow tomorrow (31 August)...

Birthday Wishes Campaign gets started…..

2011-08-30T07:02:00.000+02:00

The scrumptious cupcakes are ready and the campaign to mark the 50^th Anniversary of the Convention of the Reduction of Statelessness is heading out on the road….!

The Stateless Programme of Tilburg Law School is packing everything into the car, ready to tour the Netherlands today, Tuesday 30^th August, to honour this date. Birthday cupcakes shall be delivered to organizations and individuals interested in Statelessness across the country. Recipients will be asked to make a wish outlining their aims of what they want to see in addressing the issue of Statelessness. The objective is to raise awareness of the phenomenon of statelessness in the Netherlands and to encourage further debate among stakeholders.

Our early start will begin in Utrecht following on to Amsterdam, then The Hague and ending our evening in Rotterdam. The tour will include meetings with international and national NGOs, government officials, UN bodies and stateless people. Amnesty International, Wereldhuis, former Dutch Minster Jan Pronk, the High Commissioner for National Minorities, the IOM and the Dutch Human Rights Ambassador are just a few of the meetings we have lined up.

We will also be handing out a card with information about statelessness, the work of the Statelessness Programme and details of follow-up activities, including a symposium entitled “Voiceless, Faceless, Stateless” that will take place in Tilburg on 3 November 2011, to all the 50 cupcake recipients.

Join us on our journey; see the pictures and read the wishes throughout the day on our twitter account @statelessprog

Happy Birthday Convention!

Ground-breaking media campaign on statelessness

2011-08-26T03:11:00.003+02:00

This week is an historic day for statelessness. Just a few days before the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness reaches its 50th birthday, UNHCR rolled out a ground-breaking media campaign on statelessness. Never before has there been so much attention for this issue from the world's press. In honour of this important development and because it makes such good reading - below, in full, is the UNHCR press release that kicked it all off...

Want to hear some of the highlights explained by UNHCR High Commissioner António Guterres himself? Click here to listen to a short interview on BBC radio.

UNHCR LAUNCHES CAMPAIGN TO COMBAT STATELESSNESS

25 augustus 2011 – Around the world today there are millions of people who are not recognized as citizens of any country. On paper they don’t exist anywhere. They are people without a nationality. They are stateless.

UNHCR is mandated to prevent statelessness. On August 25, we will launch a campaign to shed light on this often elusive issue – aimed at decreasing the number of stateless worldwide. The campaign launch comes just days before the 50th anniversary of the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness on August 30, 2011.

There are numerous causes of statelessness, many of them entrenched in legalities, but the human consequences can be dramatic. Because stateless people are technically not citizens of any country, they are often denied basic rights and access to employment, housing, education, and health care. They may not be able to own property, open a bank account, get married legally, or register the birth of a child. Some face long periods of detention, because they cannot prove who they are or where they come from.

“These people are in desperate need of help because they live in a nightmarish legal limbo,” says António Guterres, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. “This makes them some of the most excluded people in the world. Apart from the misery caused to the people themselves, the effect of marginalizing whole groups of people across generations creates great stress in the societies they live in and is sometimes a source of conflict.”

UNHCR estimates that there are up to 12 million stateless people in the world, but defining exact numbers is hugely problematic. Inconsistent reporting combined with different definitions of statelessness means the true scale of the problem remains elusive. To overcome this UNHCR is raising awareness about the international legal definition while improving its own methods for gathering data on stateless populations.

While the full scope of statelessness across the globe is only just becoming known, UNHCR has found the problem is particularly acute in South East Asia, Central Asia, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East. However pockets of statelessness exist throughout the world and it's a problem that crosses all borders and walks of life.

New States

State secession carries a risk that some people will be excluded from citizenship if these issues are not considered early on in the process of separation. The world welcomed the birth of South Sudan in July, but it remains to be seen how new citizenship laws in both the north and south will be implemented.

"The dissolution of states, formation of new states, transfer of territories and redrawing of boundaries were major causes of statelessness over the past two decades. Unless new laws were carefully drafted, many people were left out,” says Mark Manly, head of the statelessness unit at UNHCR.

In the 1990s the break-up of the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia left hundreds of thousands throughout Eastern Europe and Central Asia stateless, with marginalized ethnic and social groups bearing the brunt. While most cases of statelessness have been resolved in these regions, tens of thousands of persons remain stateless or at risk of statelessness.

Women and children at risk

An unfortunate consequence of statelessness is that it can be self-perpetuating. In most cases when the parents are stateless, their children are stateless from the moment they are born. As a result the destitution and the exclusion of statelessness are visited upon yet another generation. Without a nationality, it is extremely difficult for children to get a formal education or other basic services.

Discrimination against women compounds the problem. And they are among the most vulnerable to statelessness. UNHCR analysis reveals that at least 30 countries maintain citizenship laws that discriminate against women. Women and their children in some countries run a particular risk of becoming stateless if they marry foreigners. Many states also don’t allow a mother to pass her nationality on to her children.

Fortunately, there is a growing trend for states to take action to remedy gender inequality in citizenship laws. States as diverse as Egypt (2004), Indonesia (2006), Bangladesh (2009), Kenya (2010), and Tunisia (2010) have amended their laws to grant women equal rights as men to retain their nationality and pass their nationality on to their children. Changing gender discriminatory citizenship laws is a particular goal of UNHCR's efforts surrounding the 50th anniversary of the Stateless Convention.

Ethnic discrimination

An underlying theme of most stateless situations is ethnic and racial discrimination that leads to exclusion, where political will is often lacking to resolve the problem. Groups excluded from citizenship since states gained independence or were established include the Muslim residents (Rohingya) of northern Rakhine state in Myanmar, some hill tribes in Thailand, the Bidoon in the Gulf States. While most Roma do have citizenship of the countries where they live, thousands continue to be stateless in various countries of Europe. Often such groups have become so marginalized that even when legislation changes to grant access to nationality, they encounter major obstacles to obtaining citizenship.

In recent months Croatia, the Philippines, Turkmenistan and Panama have all made the historic decision to become party to one or both of the international treaties on statelessness.

Yet the the issue remains a low priority in many countries due to political sensitivities surrounding statelessness.

The number of parties to the two stateless conventions is an indicator of international commitment: as of August 25, only 66 states are parties to the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, which defines who is considered to be a “stateless person” and establishes minimum standards of treatment. Only 38 states are parties to the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, which provides principles and a legal framework to help states prevent statelessness. The total number of UN member states is 193.

“After 50 years, these Conventions have attracted only a small number of states,’’ says Mr. Guterres. “It’s shameful that millions of people are living without a nationality – a fundamental human right. The scope of the problem and the dire effects it has on those concerned goes almost unnoticed. We must change that. Governments must act to reduce the overall numbers of stateless.”

While there are some success stories that have positively addressed statelessness, much more needs to be done. UNHCR aims to get the issue on the public agenda encourage states to accede to the two stateless conventions, reform nationality laws and take additional measures to end statelessness.

A state, within a state, within a state...

2011-07-20T09:24:00.004+02:00

There’s a curious place you can visit, just a short stretch down the road from where the Statelessness Programme has its office in Tilburg. It’s called Baarle-Hertog and it’s a little patch of Belgium, entirely encircled by territory of the Netherlands. Then, inside this patch of Belgian soil, is another, smaller plot of land which is once again a part of the Netherlands, but cut off from the rest of the country completely by the area of Belgian territory. A state, within a state, within a state. Arising many centuries ago as a result of various treaties, land swaps and sales, it is an anomaly which, much to the bewilderment of many, has defied all efforts at being corrected. Over time, successive attempts to create a more regular border situation – including as recently as 1996 – were thwarted, thanks in part to the strong sentiment of proud residents in favour of maintaining the status quo. Today, with both Belgium and the Netherlands enveloped by the European Union, this geopolitical curiosity has little real significance and it serves largely as something of a tourist attraction.

Half-way around the world, in South Asia, we find a similar geopolitical anomaly of far greater significance. The border region of India and Bangladesh, in the districts of Cooch Behar and Jalpaiguri, is dotted with its own series of enclaves – little patches of one state that are surrounded by the territory of the other. The scale of the situation is impressive: although exact figures differ from one source to another, it appears that there are over 100 Indian enclaves in Bangladeshi territory and more than 50 Bangladeshi enclaves in Indian soil. Here, too, there are also some enclaves within enclaves, such as the Bangladeshi sub-enclave of Haluapara that is surrounded by the Indian enclave of Garati, in turn encircled by Bangladesh. For over fifty years, India and Bangladesh (previously East Pakistan), have intermittently and unsuccessfully discussed the exchange of these enclaves and the normalisation of the border. In 1974, an agreement was even reached about a land swap to resolve the situation of the enclaves, but this was never implemented. All the while, the tens of thousands of residents of both sets of enclaves have been left much to their own devices, their physical separation from the mainland state resulting in them becoming cut off from regular government services. Infrastructure (e.g. roads, postal service and electricity), healthcare, education, markets/trade, law enforcement, tax collection and politics – none reach effectively across the foreign divide from the mainland state and into the enclaves. Even travelling from the enclave to the mainland state became a real challenge when passport and visa systems were introduced but no provision was made for passport offices within the enclaves to issue documents to residents, forcing them to cross borders illegally just to file a passport application in their own state.

As one study summarised, the enclaves formed an “archipelago of stateless territories” and the inhabitants themselves have been described by numerous observers as stateless. Indeed, if their lives are untouched by their purported country of nationality due to the absence of any functions of the state in their place of residence and their inability to travel to the mainland state, perhaps there is no “state” which considers them as nationals and they could in fact be identified as stateless. Or perhaps they are not truly “considered as” nationals, given that they have been left stranded in their enclave with little to no interaction with the state. [A stateless person is someone who is not considered as a national by any state under the operation of its law]. It’s certainly the case that the peculiarities of their situation raise some fundamental questions about the meaning of statehood, the content of nationality and the interpretation of various components of the definition of statelessness.

Today, the Indian and Bangladeshi enclaves are making international headlines because the two countries seem to be taking unprecedented steps towards a resolution of the situation. This month, the first ever joint census of the population of the enclaves is being carried out, to get a complete picture of how many people live in these patches of territory. It looks as though, when the countries’ leaders next meet, the proposal of a land-swap or other settlement for this anomaly will be back on the agenda. If and when this does happen, the repositioning of the borders will inevitably lead to new questions about the nationality of those who live in these areas. As with all situations where sovereignty over a plot of land is passed from one state to another, the matter of citizenship will have to be carefully coordinated in order to ensure that no-one is left stateless. It would be a sad state of affairs indeed if normal state functions and services are finally secured for the enclaves, only to now leave the people without citizenship or forced to relocate in order to continue to enjoy a nationality.

Laura van Waas, Senior Researcher and Manager, Statelessness Programme

Gender discrimination helps to avoid statelessness?

2011-07-04T09:45:00.001+02:00

Comments on the judgment of the US Court of Appeals, as confirmed by the judgment of the US Supreme Court, US v. Ruben Flores-Villar

A recent judgment of the Supreme Court upheld, to the surprise of statelessness experts, a very strange finding of the US Court of Appeals, namely that explicit discrimination on the basis of gender in national law is justified, among others, by the objective to avoid statelessness.

The case revolved around the question of the US citizenship of Mr Flores-Villar, who was born in Mexico, to a Mexican mother and an American father. His parents never married. US Nationality law distinguishes between mothers and fathers in their ability to transmit their US citizenship to their children born out of wedlock on the territory of a foreign state. Fathers need to meet much stricter requirement than mothers. Fathers need to have resided in the US for at least 10 years prior to the child's birth, at least 5 of which after the age of 14, and mothers only need to have resided in the US for 1 year prior to the child's birth. Since the father of Mr. Flores-Villar was 16 at the time of birth of Flores-Villar, it was impossible for him to fulfill the condition of having lived in the US for a least five years after the age of 14.

The US government successfully argued in favour of differential treatment of men and women, by saying that 'avoiding stateless children is an important objective that is substantially furthered by relaxing the residence requirement for women'.[emphasis added] The wording of this argument is very important, because it suggests that were the discrimination to be eliminated, it would not result in men being able to transmit their citizenship to children born abroad more easily. Instead, women would be held to the same strict requirements as men. This would, of course, lead to more cases of statelessness, since fewer American parents would be able to offer US citizenship to their children.

However, with such logic, any gender discrimination laws leading to statelessness can be reinterpreted as actually avoiding statelessness. For example, if a law obliges women, and not men, to renounce their nationality upon marrying a foreigner, it can be said to be avoiding statelessness by relaxing renunciation criteria for men – if men were also obliged to renounce their citizenship, many more cases of statelessness would be created.

Assessment of gender discrimination in nationality law in light of the problem of statelessness should focus on establishing the risks of becoming stateless (or having stateless children) for the disadvantaged group. Illustrating that certain favours extended to a priviledged group result in less statelessness than if such favours were not extended does not make gender discrimination justifiable.

Another aspect of this discriminatory law that was not clarified in the judgment is why men, and not women, are being discriminated against? Why do women need greater opportunity to pass on their nationality to children born abroad in order to avoid statelessness? In fact, there are many states that continue to adhere to a patrilineal jus sanguinis regime, which assumes that a child inherits the nationality of the father. If a child is born on the territory of such a state, or if the mother is a national of such a state, enabling men to transmit their citizenship is much more important for the purposes of avoiding statelessness.

The Court does not explain why statelessness is better avoided by favouring women. Instead, it endorses the US government's arguments involving archaic sexist perceptions of parenthood. Mothers were judged to have a better chance to establish a relationship with their child, because they inevitably meet their child at least once, i.e. during the birth. Mr. Flores-Villar, who was brought up by his father, suggested that the factual parent-child bond should be taken into account, but the Court disagreed. Why should we bother with the "subjectivity, intrusiveness, and difficulties of proof" related to the establishment of the factual parent-child relationship, when there is an "easily administered scheme" of biologically-based stereoypes to rely on?

And what about the discriminating attitude of the judgment (and of the US Nationality Law) towards children born out of wedlock? According to the legal provision at stake, they are obviously at a higher risk of becoming stateless than children born in a marriage, even if they are brought up by both parents. This question was not even touched upon in the judgment.

The way in which the US Court of Appeals used the argument of avoiding statelessness in this judgment is surprising. The fact that this reasoning was upheld by the US Supreme Court is disturbing. The only consolation is that the Supreme Court was divided, four judges against four, which indicates that not all judges in the Supreme Court misunderstand so deeply the relationship between gender discrimination and statelessness.

Katja Swider, Researcher/Advisor, Statelessness Programme

Sources:

Judgment of the Court of Appeals

Judgment of the Supreme Court

To “do an Obama”

2011-06-16T09:59:00.000+02:00

When digging up some extra teaching resources for a statelessness workshop in South Africa last week, my attention was drawn by a recent article in Zimbabwean newspaper The Standard, entitled “Zim birth threatens Banda’s second-term bid”. The piece was about accusations raised by political opponents, that Zambia’s current President, Rupiah Banda, is not in fact eligible for the presidency under the country’s own laws. For the Zambia’s top job, the Constitution requires not only that the presidential candidate is a citizen, but that both of his or her parents are also Zambian nationals. Banda’s opponents are now claiming that he is of Malawian parentage and the fact that he was born in Zimbabwe (then Southern Rhodesia) has further fuelled allegations about his non-eligibility for the presidential office.

This case is compelling for a number of reasons, not least because it isn’t the first time that the citizenship and heritage of a Zambian president has been questioned. Indeed, in one of the most remarkable statelessness-related cases that I have come across, the Zambian High Court ruled that Kenneth Kaunda, described by the New York Times as the ‘father of modern Zambia’, was stateless. Although not in power at the time, Kaunda had previously ruled the country as president for 27 years. And it was when Kaunda announced plans to run against the governing party and re-claim the presidency, that his political opponents challenged his citizenship in court. Should the court agree that he is not a national of Zambia, then Kaunda would automatically be barred from making good on his ambitions to return to office. After noting that Kaunda had renounced his Malawian nationality years before, the High Court ruled that he was also not a citizen under Zambian law, thereby declaring him stateless. (The following year, however, the Supreme Court overruled this judgment and Kaunda’s Zambian citizenship was recognised)

These Zambian cases are a perfect illustration of the politicisation of nationality. Although not always featuring such prominent individuals, the questioning and even manipulation of citizenship for political ends is not uncommon. Nor is it a tactic monopolised by countries that have recently embraced multiparty democracy, which brings me to the title of this post. In the Zimbabwean newspaper article that I referred to earlier and which inspired this piece, Rupiah Banda was reportedly being urged by his opponents to literally “do an Obama”, i.e. to substantiate his citizenship and eligibility the Presidency by responding to claims about his origins and ancestry. Earlier this year, the White House released President Barack Obama’s official birth certificate in order to refute, once and for all, the allegation that he was not born on US soil. Conspiracy theorists and political opponents had been pushing the rumour that Obama was born in Indonesia or Kenya (and was thereby unqualified for office), causing it to persistently resurface in the press since the time of the Presidential campaign. Having decided that these rumours were becoming an unhealthy distraction from important political debate, Obama released his original birth certificate which establishes his birthplace as Hawaii.

As organisations like UNICEF and Plan International continue to point out and Obama has now very publicly illustrated, birth registration is of critical importance to the protection of a person’s rights, throughout their lifetime. A birth certificate provides evidence of key facts about an individual, which can be used to verify identity, nationality and even eligibility to hold Presidential office. Worldwide, the births of some 50 million children go unregistered each year. Unless this is addressed, these children will not be able to “do an Obama” and produce a birth certificate when asked to do so in later life – for instance in order to obtain an ID card or passport, or to sit school exams. Yes, high profile cases like Rupiah Banda’s and Barack Obama’s are fascinating to follow, steeped as they are in political intrigue and conspiracy. But let’s hope that the underlying message is also received loud and clear: whatever your (political) ambitions in life, birth registration is key to giving you a fair start and can continue to play a part in protecting a your identity and rights throughout your lifetime.

Find out more about the link between birth registration and statelessness in this UNHCR policy note. To follow developments in the push for Universal Birth Registration, supported by UNICEF and Plan International, visit their websites. In the Netherlands, Plan has also set up a special campaign, Babies For Babies, through which you can directly support birth registration efforts.

Laura van Waas, Senior Researcher and Manager, Statelessness Programme

A Woman’s Call

2011-06-01T08:59:00.003+02:00

On a rainy International Womens Day in Beirut, Lebanese women took to the streets dressed in top-hats and men’s suits, with moustaches painted onto their faces. Donning a man’s wardrobe, their call was for their rights as women to be adopted and respected. For months since then there have been ongoing sit-ins in the capital calling for gender equality. This call has focused on their right to pass on nationality to their children, highlighting one of the most significant problems inherent across MENA states regarding citizenship laws.

All of the States in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) have ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Woman (CEDAW), the last being Qatar in 2009. Equally however, most have put in reservations to Article 9 of this convention, the article granting equality in nationality rights. This means that the concept of dependent nationality, where the nationality of the children and the wife is dependent on that of the father or the husband, remains apparent across the region. The lack of a legal right for a woman to pass on her nationality to anyone is a worrying regional phenomenon.

The degree of discrimination varies but no State is exempt from it. Most states do not allow women to pass on their citizenship to their husbands or children. This is the case in the Gulf, for example, where men can pass on their nationality to their children and foreign wives, but women do not possess the same right. In Saudi Arabia, the situation is slightly different from other Gulf countries due to a new law in 2007 that states that a Saudi mother who is married to a foreign man may pass on her citizenship to her son after he becomes an adult - the discriminatory treatment of women continuing the cycle of gender discrimination. Tunisia is a rare case where both males and females have equally been able to pass on citizenship to their children and spouses even when born outside the state. Despite being the best case example across the region, even in Tunisia there are elements of gender discrimination. A Tunisian woman married to a foreigner needs the father’s approval before passing on citizenship to her children.

Not possessing the right to pass on nationality to your children is often a main cause behind the inability to prevent new cases of statelessness. The number of people negatively impacted - with statelessness being one of these impacts - by gender discrimination in nationality laws is potentially huge. Many women in the MENA are married to men who are not nationals of the same state and may thus face problems in terms of transmitting nationality to their children. For example in Lebanon just under 18,000 women are believed to be married to non-nationals, and the number of Bidoon men in Kuwait married to Kuwaiti women is significant.

The region is experiencing significant civil society movement to challenge this. Lebanon, Bahrain and Kuwait show good case examples of this. However there are often significant and politically sensitive problems intertwined with this issue, such as demographics and immigration, that achieving legal change for gender equality will continue to be a huge challenge.

Zahra Albarazi, MENA Project Coordinator, Statelessness Programme

More than just an intellectual brainteaser

2011-05-17T09:36:00.003+02:00

There is no denying that statelessness makes for a fascinating intellectual puzzle. When I tell people about statelessness, a common response is surprise, or even consternation, that it is possible for someone to be neglected in such a fundamental way and left to live without any nationality. How does that happen? Why does that happen? What can be done? These are the usual questions generated upon learning of the existence of statelessness.

While the answers to these questions are relatively straight-forward (and will no doubt be touched upon in many of the blog posts to come), statelessness remains something of an intellectual brainteaser – even for those who have spent a good few years digging deeper into the mechanics of the phenomenon. Further study brings new questions to light. Why is human rights law concerned about statelessness, such that it establishes the right to a nationality, while simultaneously suggesting through the very system of rights as human rights, that nationality has lost its importance? If you appear to have a nationality on paper, but are never treated as a national by state authorities, are you stateless? Where a state is obliged, in accordance with its own international commitments, to confer nationality to a child who would otherwise be stateless, how does it expect to meet this obligation without putting in place a procedure to figure out whether the child in question would, indeed, otherwise be stateless?

But these and other theoretical ponderings will also have to wait their turn, for this post is about the other side of statelessness. Yes, statelessness is more than just an intellectual brainteaser: it’s also about people. It is this human side of statelessness that has truly captured hearts and led to some remarkable initiatives, by remarkable people. All over the world, grassroots organisations are working tirelessly to teach stateless people about their rights and to walk them through any available procedures that there might be to resolve their situation and acquire a nationality. On my first foray into the field to find out what was happening on the ground – a research trip to Thailand in 2006 – I met with numerous individuals and organisations whose impressive projects belie their shoestring budgets. The Mirror Foundation, for instance, was quietly fundraising through a range of cultural activities to help one stateless child at a time to pay for a DNA test that would allow them to prove their family ties with a parent or sibling who holds citizenship and confirm their own nationality on that basis. This is just one of dozens of examples around the world of a community that is empowering its members to help themselves.

Ever since that first exposure with an extraordinary project established by ordinary people, discovering other initiatives of this kind has been one of the most enjoyable parts of my work. The variety, creativity and sophistication of these initiatives is startling. Take the stunning and evocative work of photographer Greg Constantine, who has captured people’s experiences of statelessness in his Nowhere People series in a way that seamlessly combines art and documentary. His work and the way he does his work are an incredible source of inspiration, so keep your eyes peeled for an opportunity to see his exhibition. Then there are the energetic young journalists from Holland, Els & Evelien, who have made it their mission to travel to a selection of countries affected by statelessness and record personal histories so that we can all get to know this vulnerable and often voiceless group a bit better. Their Citizens of Nowhere project is about to kick off and can be followed through their blog. Returning to Thailand for one last example for now, there’s the incredible story of Joseph & Susan: two students from a US university who started out documenting statelessness in Thailand through photography and have since devoted their time to Higher Education as Humanitarian Aid through their initiative, The Thailand Project.

Statelessness then, is first and foremost about people... about the stateless as a vulnerable group who deserve our attention... about the stateless as individuals with a capacity to act and affect change... and about other people who have been inspired by the human story of statelessness to do remarkable work. So if you have just discovered the phenomenon of statelessness and have questions about the what, why and how, these intiatives will provide you with a unique and invaluable insight. The intellectual brainteasers can wait for another day.

Laura van Waas, Senior Researcher and Manager, Statelessness Programme

Citizenship in the Arab world

2011-05-09T12:03:00.004+02:00

An introduction to a new research initiative on statelessness in the Middle East and North Africa.

MENA Statelessness and Nationality research project

After the success of the Africa nationality research project, Citizenship in Africa, the idea of launching a similar advocacy oriented research project on statelessness and nationality discrimination in the Middle East and North Africa developed, coordinated by the Open Society Foundations’ Justice Initiative and the Arab Regional Office. A look at this region showed how the issue of statelessness, flaws in nationality legislation and discrimination in citizenship matters were apparent and often extreme. Despite this, very little effort or research had been undertaken. Hence, the MENA Statelessness and Nationality research project was launched in Amman in October 2010. The launching conference, which brought together experts and potential research partners, worked on developing the idea further. It was decided that the research would constitute an analysis of the nationality law of 18 countries in the region, alongside separate studies of prevalent regional thematic issues.

Statelessness and discrimination in access to citizenship are enormous problems across the MENA region and an initial study was done to pinpoint the main problematic topics that needed to be understood and addressed. The area hosts some of the largest populations of stateless persons in the world, including Palestinians in the Levant and elsewhere, Kurds in Syria, the Bidoon of the Arabian Peninsula, stateless Sahrawi refugees in Algeria, and black Mauritanians returning to their homeland after decades of forced exile. Each State has its own respective problems with key shortcomings in nationality legislation, but there were also many common regional trends, predominantly constituting;

· Rampant gender discrimination;

· Ethnic and religious discrimination;

· Lack of due process guarantees with respect to deprivation of citizenship;

· Lack of effective remedies for affected populations;

· Lack of implementation of positive policies and legislation, often leading to ad hoc and arbitrary practices and decisions

The rights of hundreds of thousands of people across the area continue to be violated due to these shortcomings and discrimination, violations that spread across communities and generations.

Future of the project

Soon after the identification of the issues and the launch of the project, the Arab region witnessed the commencement of uprisings across the area. In the short-term this led to obstacles in the development of the project. No field research was possible in the countries affected and there were enhanced difficulties in access to resources and networks. Even in States that were not witnessing internal uprisings, the volatile regional political situation did not offer an environment to launch - often sensitive - research and studies.

Despite these setbacks the changing scene presents a hope that these sudden developments will lead to important steps, steps that would establish an environment more accommodating to improving citizenship rights in the region. It has certainly highlighted the importance of the issue of citizenship. One of the first concessions made by the Syrian government in its attempt to quell frustration was to offer Syrian citizenship to Kurds who had been denied it for generations. In Kuwait, the Bidoon community are the main force actively protesting for their civil and social rights - forcing their issue into the limelight. And in Jordan, much discussion has been surfacing on halting the longstanding practice of withdrawing Jordanian citizenship from Palestinians.

One long-term hope for changes in the region is that a more developed civil society will emerge, which would go hand in hand with the advocacy projects the regional study on citizenship hopes to initiate. The wish is that this would come alongside a more established atmosphere of transparency and accountability - helping address the problem of implementing protective legislation on the matter.

The project continues to grow and gather together a variety researchers on the issues, and now perhaps an improved future environment to engage on the issue of MENA statelessness and nationality.

Zahra Albarazi, Coordinator, MENA statelessness and nationality research project

“Happy Birthday!” to the Reduction of Statelessness

2011-04-13T11:42:00.000+02:00

A commentary on the UNHCR Expert Meeting Conclusions 'Statelessness Determination Procedures and the Status of Stateless Persons'...

Better Later than Never!

The 50^th anniversary of the 1961 UN Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness was marked by a UNHCR expert inquiry as to how we can actually determine who is stateless and who is not. It was high time to address this issue, since the lack of functioning determination procedures for statelessness is still the main stumble block in the access of stateless persons to the protection intended for them. Millions of people suffer hardships of exclusion from the domain of law due to their statelessness, or more specifically – due to their statelessness not being recognised as a legal status entitling them to a set of legal rights.

Even though the Expert Meeting Conclusions have little to do with the reduction of statelessness, but rather with another UN Convention – 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons – which is is celebrating its unimpressive 57^th birthday this year, let us not be picky. Any excuse is good to embark on this important and highly relevant issue of protection of stateless persons!

What Was Concluded?

The task of the expert meeting was not easy: to break 50 years of relative international silence on determination of statelessness and national implementation of protection mechanisms for stateless persons. Naturally, in the meanwhile different states went their own ways in dealing (or not dealing) with these issues. Some fused statelessness determination procedures with procedures for the recognition of refugees, some included it into procedures for acquiring a residence status, and for some determination of statelessness does not seem like a suitable solution to the problems of statelessness at all, but instead ways of recognising stateless persons as nationals are sought. Some regularly (attempt to) contact foreign governments to inquire about nationality statuses of individuals, while others have strong objections against such practice. Some see the recognition of statelessness as implying the right of residence, while others consider it acceptable under certain circumstances to require a stateless person to move back to the state of previous habitual residence. These and many other fascinating differences in practices and opinions are reflected in the Conclusions.

On some important points the Expert Meeting also seem to have found agreement. These were, among others:

- to train and educate national officials on the determination procedures available for stateless persons;

- to keep confidentiality when communicating with foreign governments about nationality statuses of individuals, to avoid endangering stateless persons who may have refugee-related concerns;

- to provide procedural guarantees in the statelessness determination procedures, such as remedies against rejection, availability of legal aid, establishing reasonable fees and suspending deportation orders until the final outcome of the determination procedure;

- not to place the entire burden of proof on the individual in establishing his or her statelessness.

In addition to discussing how can an individual be identified as stateless, the Expert Meeting touched upon certain relevant issues of protection, especially those that have not been made explicit in the 1954 Convention, such as legal immigration status of stateless persons, their right of residence, and the relation between the protection of refugees and of stateless persons.

Even though the Expert Meeting did not bind any government with legal obligations to enhance their determination procedures for stateless persons, the value of its Conclusions should not be underestimated. It finally drew international attention to one of the major challenges on the way to protecting stateless populations, it identified the points of consensus as well as disagreements, but most importantly, it gave a strong tool for national policy-makers, lobby groups and activist organisations to promote structural changes related to the status of stateless persons.

What Now?

The year of 2011 was not only marked by this Expert Meeting, as far as the attention to the problem of statelessness is concerned. The UNHCR has commissioned several nation-wide studies on statelessness in Europe, and there is a clear increase in the academic interest on the issue. Hopefully this “anniversary push” will stimulate the long-overdue formalisation and effective implementation of the protection of stateless persons within national jurisdictions. The transformation of statelessness from legal anomaly into a well-functioning legal status has thus clearly been defined as a goal, and hopefully we will witness changes to that end before another 50 years of the existence of UN Conventions on Statelessness have elapsed.

Katja Swider, Researcher/Advisor, Statelessness Programme

The full text of the Conclusions can be found here: http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/4d9022762.html

“Hello and welcome!”

2011-04-06T09:05:00.001+02:00

You have stumbled upon the blog site of the Statelessness Programme – an initiative of Tilburg Law School, dedicated to research, training and outreach on statelessness and related issues. This is where participating researchers and friends of the Statelessness Programme are invited to post their thoughts on statelessness doctrine, case law and new developments in the field. It is an area for informal commentary and exchange of views. It is a friendly space, where we do our best to use plain language in describing concepts and background. We would like to encourage you to subscribe to the blog or check back regularly for new posts and to participate in the discussion by commenting on any entry that interests you. In this first post, we would like to take the opportunity to extend to you a warm hello and welcome!

Statelessness is an issue that intersects and interacts with many others. There are, for instance, clear linkages between statelessness and forced displacement, gender discrimination, child protection, state succession, democratization, minority rights, human security and even climate change. For those with an interest in citizenship, the anomaly of the stateless person is compelling because it forces us to reconsider not only how nationality should be regulated, but the very meaning of citizenship itself. For those whose fascination lies with the universalist promise of contemporary human rights law, statelessness provides arguably the ultimate case study – a place to test assumptions about the de-linking of nationality and rights. And for those who seek to understand the role played by nationality today in the formation of our sense of identity, the stateless are uniquely placed to show what impact the denial of political membership has on a person’s psyche.

By commenting on concepts, cases and developments, we hope that this blog site will grow to provide a space for exploring statelessness from historic, legal, philosophical, sociological, economic, political and psychological perspectives. We look forward to this discussion.

Laura van Waas, Senior Researcher and Manager, Statelessness Programme