From Statelessness Programme to Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion

After three rewarding, enjoyable and successful years building up an international portfolio of research, training and outreach work on statelessness within the Statelessness Programme at Tilburg Law School, we are pleased to announce that from the 1st of January 2015, we will continue our work under the flag of the newly established Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion. The Institute is an independent non-profit organisation that aims to lead an integrated, inter-disciplinary response to the injustice of statelessness and exclusion. Along with the Statelessness Programme’s Laura van Waas and Zahra Albarazi, the Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion is also co-founded by Amal de Chickera who has been working on statelessness for the Equal Rights Trust in London. The threefold mission of the Institute is to be:

-          An Expert source of impartial, trusted and interdisciplinary research, analysis, information and education on statelessness and disenfranchisement around the world;

-          A Partner who builds connections across disciplines between people concerned about and/or affected by statelessness and disenfranchisement; and

-          A Catalyst for challenging perceptions on statelessness, strengthening protection and forging inclusion and participation.

What will change?

The Statelessness Programme will no longer continue when the Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion becomes operational on the 1^st of January. This means that if you want to continue to follow our work or be involved in our activities, you will have to visit the Institute’s own website: www.InstituteSI.org. If you currently receive the Statelessness Programme newsletter, you will automatically be signed up for the Institute’s mailing list but the new updates will come with a new look and new logo. Our new and more ambitious mission, as well as the involvement of co-founder Amal de Chickera, means that we will strengthen and expand our work so that we can strive to form an effective bridge between academia and civil society / UN / policymakers, but also help new actors to get involved in exploring and finding solutions to statelessness. Our independence will allow us to be more visible, flexible and able to respond to the needs of those working to address statelessness around the world.

What will not change?

Our dedication to the issue of statelessness remains unchanged and this will continue to be the central focus of our work. We will continue to be affiliated with Tilburg University and be present on campus: we will still teach the undergraduate elective ‘Nationality, Statelessness and Human Rights’ and be available for the supervision of bachelor and masters dissertations, as well as to offer student internships when we can. We will continue to offer our statelessness summer and regional courses to professionals and academics working in this field. We will continue to work within and support the efforts of the European Network on Statelessness to improve the response to statelessness within Europe. We will continue to play a role in the International Campaign to End Gender Discriminatory Nationality Laws. And, perhaps most importantly, we will continue to be a source of trusted and impartial research and analysis on statelessness and related issues.

What’s next?

The Institute is currently engaged in a process of consultation, strategic planning and fund-raising, including through a crowd-funding campaign, to cover its start-up costs. To learn more about the Institute, visit its website: www.institutesi.org and its campaign page: http://bit.ly/1D9j7ey. You can support us by spreading the word about the Institute within your networks and sharing our campaign page through social media. 

The story behind finding some of Europe’s invisible people

Although hundreds of thousands of stateless people live in Europe, finding them can be a challenge at times. An important part of the ENS campaign to improve protection of stateless persons in Europe is helping to take away the invisibility of the issue of statelessness in Europe. As part of this campaign, testimonies of stateless individuals in Europe have been collected in an effort to give statelessness a ‘human face’.

Contributing to this campaign, the Statelessness Programme at Tilburg University has been gathering stories of stateless persons in the Netherlands since September 2013. The Netherlands has not established a statelessness determination procedure, which means that it is unclear how many stateless persons there are in the country. In 2010, over 85,000 people were registered with Dutch municipalities as stateless or “nationality unknown” – many of the latter may also be in fact stateless. In this blog post I would like to take you through the journey, the challenges and surprises, of giving a ‘human face’ to statelessness.

Identifying stateless persons

Many individuals, non-profit organizations and NGO’s find the phenomenon of statelessness very confusing or do not have a full understanding of what it means. So where does one begin in first locating and then trying to identify an individual as stateless?  At first, it seems like looking for a needle in a haystack, but after seven months of work I was able to meet 15 stateless persons and families, all with different backgrounds, which helped painting a clearer picture of the countless situations which exist for a person to be or end up stateless in the Netherlands.

In the first two months I had contacted 200+ organizations across the country that in some way deal with (irregular) migrants, and many of them had questions about how to identify stateless people. They felt unable to distinguish stateless people from other non-nationals: in their eyes, many of the irregular migrants they assist face the same issues, including being unable to return to their country of origin and the inability to prove their nationality or to acquire identity documents. Nonetheless, with help from students at Tilburg University, fellow colleagues and interns at the Statelessness Programme but also lawyers, volunteers at non-profit organizations and religious institutions I was able to get in touch with stateless people who would be willing to share their story.

I have met stateless persons from as young as 3 months right up to 80 years of age from different countries including Myanmar, China, Congo, Ukraine, Viet Nam, Macedonia, Iraq, Azerbaijan, and Palestine but also children born stateless in the Netherlands. Some have never been recognized as a national of any state while others had their nationality withdrawn for a variety of reasons and are unable to reacquire their nationality.

Challenges faced by stateless people in the Netherlands

Some of the stateless persons I met possess a residence permit, often based on an immigration amnesty law which was adopted in 2007. They face the problem that they are now unable to naturalize because of their inability to prove their statelessness. I also met stateless people who are staying irregularly in the Netherlands. The lack of a statelessness determination procedure is causing inadequate protection for these people. As a matter of fact, more than half of all persons I met have never even acquired a residence permit, even those that have been living here in the Netherlands for over 15 years. As a result, they have been completely dependent on interim-aid from, for instance, shelters and churches. I noticed a common wish shared amongst them – to return to their homeland and if that is not possible to be somewhere in the world where their statelessness is acknowledged. For many of them, what seems like such a simple wish is accompanied by countless procedures, a web of requirements they are unable to meet, and the lack of proper documentation.

Many people live in fear of being detained because of their residence status and, therefore, live in loneliness and some have not left the city or village in which they have lived for years. Others have been traumatized from being detained multiple times for not possessing identity documents, not only in the Netherlands but also abroad, and struggle with psychological and physical health issues due to stress, about the constant worry about their legal procedures and their desperate hope to acquire a regularized stay and feel human again. This was prevalent, especially amongst the young adults, many of whom mentioned that they do not have any prospects for realizing their future plans such as studying, working, having a family or being able to travel. Hopes and ambitions shared amongst many of their peers. They say not to have any form of control over their own lives because all they can do is wait, wait for a residence permit which enables them to have a normal life.

It has really been an eye-opening experience for me to see the poor conditions that some of these stateless persons are forced to live in here in the Netherlands. Some of them are living in real poverty, moving between makeshift shelters such as the ones which have been constricted in a parking garage with little access to running water and electricity, or inside a former prison, knowing that in three months it will be time to pack up again and look for a new ‘home’. My first reaction to this was: how is it possible that people have to live in such circumstances in what is a so-called ‘first-world country’?

As mentioned, I also met stateless people who possess a residence permit and their human rights are, contrary to those who are irregularly in the Netherlands, much better protected. It has been very interesting to see their perspective on the phenomenon of statelessness, especially after meeting the stateless persons who do not have a legalized stay in the Netherlands. According to them, not having a nationality disadvantages them in some ways, such as not being able to vote or to travel to some countries but most of them are studying at a university and they are all determined to make a good living. They refuse to let the fact that they do not have a nationality keep them from their ambitions and dreams to better themselves - instead it is just a personal circumstance that requires more administrative work for them and more bureaucracy.

Some reflections

In the past eight months I have been able to get to know only 15 of the 600,000 stateless persons in Europe a little better. One of the challenges with this storytelling project was, at first, building trust with some of the stateless persons and letting them know that they will not get in trouble for sharing their story and giving insights of what it is like to being stateless and living in a European country. After spending some time with the stateless persons, they actually truly appreciated that someone is taking the time to talk with them and listen to their story.

What upsets me the most is to know that these persons, who are just a few faces in the crowd of thousands of stateless persons in Europe, do not receive adequate protection from the country in which they currently live. When they explain to me how statelessness affects their daily lives, I can see sorrow and confusion reflected in their eyes, along with a faint spark of hope when they express their wishes for the future. I can feel that they are tired and frustrated of being stuck in legal limbo. Yet they acknowledge that it is important to share their story in order to raise awareness for the issue of statelessness, knowing it will not help their individual case at this point.

More attention is now being paid to statelessness in Europe, including thanks to this ENS campaign. Last month, Greg Constantine visited the Netherlands on the invitation of ENS and the Statelessness Programme. Working with Greg and seeing his dedication as a human rights photographer to make the issue of statelessness visible is admirable. For the past eight years, Greg has devoted his career to meeting stateless people worldwide but had yet to meet stateless people in a Western European country. During his visit here, he took his time really getting to know the stateless persons I had been speaking to and was able to capture the stories of these unique individuals through photographs. Afterwards, everyone was genuinely happy to have met Greg and found it an opportunity they would not want to miss. Besides telling their own stories, they were curious to hear more about Greg’s work. For instance, a stateless Rohingya from Myanmar said: ‘I am so happy to have met Greg. He has been to Myamar and Bangladesh several times and it feels good to talk about my situation with someone who understands and knows from experience what it is like there’. A photo essay with these stories will be ready by September, in time to be exhibited at the First Global Forum on Statelessness in The Hague and to be used as part of the ENS campaign.

It is also fantastic news that more than 3500 people have already showed concern and signed the ENS petition to protect statelessness in Europe since it was launched three weeks ago. However, more signatures are needed to show leaders of Europe that the issue of statelessness cannot be ignored.

Sangita Jaghai, Intern at the Statelessness Programme

Note that this blog post first appeared on the website of the European Network on Statelessness, here: http://www.statelessness.eu/blog/story-behind-finding-some-europe%E2%80%99s-invisible-people.  

Photo Competition: (my) nationality

This year is the 65th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Adopted on 10 December 1948, this document proclaims that “all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights”. It elaborates rights for every individual in the world, whatever their nationality.

But nationality is still important: it gives a person a sense of belonging and plays an important part in enabling people to exercise rights. Just imagine what life would be like without a country, without a passport. For the more than 10 million stateless people around the world, despite the aspirations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, life is still very hard.

In order to raise awareness of the global problem of statelessness, the Statelessness Programme and Awake International are organising the photo competition “(my) nationality”. 

Inspire us with your view on nationality. For example: What does it mean, for you, to be a national of your country? What is special about your nationality? How would you feel if you lost your nationality? The challenge is to capture your view of nationality, or your experience of your own nationality, in a single picture: one photograph.

Requirements

You can submit 1 picture by sending in your full name, your e-mail address, your age, a title for the photograph and a brief description of the image and the story behind it to photocontesthumanrightsday@gmail.com. There are no additional requirements for the format of the picture. The winner of the competition can choose between a Mediamarkt or Foregames voucher (30€ each), whereas the consolation price will be the not-chosen voucher. By sending in your picture you give automatically consent to post it on the Facebook and Blog of the Statelessness Programme

Important dates

The deadline for submissions is 5 December 2013. On the 10th of December the winner will be announced during the Human Rights Day seminar on statelessness (Dante Building, Room 1, Tilburg University, 3.00-5.00pm). Afterwards there will be an informal gathering with drinks in the Foyer of the same building.

A time for action - ENS launches campaign to protect stateless persons in Europe

As a founding member and active participant of the European Network on Statelessness, we at the Statelessness Programme are proud to be a part of the first Europe-wide civil society campaign for the protection of stateless people in Europe. Below is the blog by ENS coordinator Chris Nash, explaining the aims of this campaign [first posted on the website of ENS here].

Since its launch in June last year the European Network on Statelessness (ENS) has attracted  50 new member organisations in over 30 European countries. Encouraged by the diversity of its membership base and keen to build on recent momentum with regard to global efforts to tackle statelessness, ENS today launches a year-long campaign seeking to improve protection for stateless persons in Europe.

A public statement launching the campaign is available here and is intended to be circulated as widely as possible to help spread awareness about the campaign and what we hope to achieve.

Previous ENS blogs have reported on the impressive strides made with regard to ratification of the two UN Statelessness Conventions – for an up to date progress report by UNHCR see here. At the regional level two striking features stand out. The first is the critical agenda for concerted action provided by the European Union in October 2012 when it pledged that all its Member States not already having done so (that’s Estonia, Cyprus, Malta and Poland) would accede to the 1954 Statelessness Convention – the international instrument setting out obligations owing to stateless persons on a State Party’s territory. The second is that despite this near universal ratification, relatively so few states have in place dedicated statelessness determination procedures which are a prerequisite for them to fulfil their obligations towards stateless persons in practice (those EU states with provisions in place are France, Hungary, Italy, Spain and the UK as well as outside the EU Georgia and Moldova).

What’s surprising is that this glaring gap between notional rights owing and the possibility of attaining them in reality has continued unquestioned for so long. Many European states signed up to help stateless persons decades ago but then simply did nothing – this for example in stark contrast to their response to having ratified the 1951 Refugee Convention, with regard to which almost all signatories have considered it de rigueur to adopt asylum procedures in order to be able to recognise and reward those deserving of sanctuary. The absence of an equivalent protection framework for stateless persons can have devastating consequences for those individuals stuck in limbo as a result.

Joint research conducted in 2011 by UNHCR and my organisation Asylum Aid found that previously stateless persons in the UK were left unidentified and at risk of human rights abuses. Many of the stateless persons we interviewed had been destitute for months, had been detained by immigration authorities in spite of evidence that showed there was no prospect of return, or had been separated for years from their families abroad. Some had been forced to sleep on the streets. Many had seen their accommodation and support repeatedly cancelled and reinstated. Almost all of this group were prohibited from working. Few were in a position to break this cycle. UNHCR mapping studies in Belgium and the Netherlands revealed a similar picture with the absence of adequate protection mechanisms leaving stateless migrants stuck in an endless limbo without respect for their fundamental rights. UNHCR is currently undertaking mapping studies in the Nordic and Balltic states which will hopefully also shed much needed light on the situation in those countries. As such there is a growing body of evidence about the harsh reality facing stateless persons in Europe today.

As reported more fully in a previous blog, what has changed - in the UK at least – is the introduction of new Immigration Rules effective from April this year which now provide stateless persons with a regularisation route and a crucial lifeline out of limbo. This example now needs to be followed by other European countries.

ENS has chosen today, the anniversary of Hannah Arendt’s birthday, to launch a pan-European campaign seeking to improve the protection of stateless persons in Europe. Timed to coincide with the 60th anniversary of the 1954 Statelessness Convention, this campaign will bring together our members and other civil society organisations across Europe in calling for:

1)      All European Union states to accede to the 1954 Statelessness Convention by the end 2014.

2)      All European states without a functioning statelessness determination procedure to make a clear commitment during 2014 to take necessary steps to introduce one by the end 2016.

While not underestimating the ambitious nature of these objectives, we believe that we can make real progress towards achieving them through a combination of awareness-raising and advocacy activities at the national and European Union level. Central to this will be our efforts to put a human face on the statelessness issue by gathering individual stories and testimonies from across Europe. Equally important will be our ability to successfully engage broader popular support through online advocacy and use of social and other media. Finally, the campaign will culminate with a concerted day of action against statelessness across Europe on 14 October 2014. We are asking our members and other interested organisations to plan ahead in order to mark that day with a special event or action – for example a public meeting, film screening, photo exhibition, umbrella march, public lecture or media briefing/press release. As well as providing an important focus point for the campaign, it will hopefully also demonstrate the value of implementing ENS’s existing call for the UN General Assembly to adopt an international day of action against statelessness.  

Our campaign launch statement concludes that:

“With your support we can bring Europe’s legal ghosts out of the shadows and ensure that stateless persons are treated with the respect and dignity which has been lacking since the philosopher Hannah Arendt famously identified their plight in her seminal text The Origins of Totalitarianism back in 1951. The fact that there remain an estimated 600,000 stateless persons living in Europe today shows that action is long overdue. The time for action is now.”

Ultimately the success of this initiative will be dependent on the level of backing it receives from a broad spectrum of supporters. We hope that working together we can bring about real change. Please start by sharing details of the campaign as widely as possible.

For further information or to get involved visit www.statelessness.eu

or email ENS Coordinator Chris Nash at info@statelessness.eu

UNHCR and Tilburg University announce winners of Statelessness Research Award

Today, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and Tilburg University on Friday named the inaugural winners of the UNHCR Award for Statelessness Research. The announcement coincides with the anniversary of the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons (tomorrow, 28 September).

The winners…

In the undergraduate category, the winner is Amanda Cheong, whose thesis "Changing Conceptions of Citizenship Among Stateless Chinese-Bruneian Immigrants in Vancouver," was nominated by the Department of Sociology at the University of British Columbia in Canada. Cheong selected one of the world’s least-known situations of statelessness as the subject of her research: the Chinese minority of the Sultanate of Brunei Darussalam. Cheong explores the implications of statelessness for peoples’ life chances in Brunei, looks at how international migration has been adopted as one response to this situation and how the exposure of those who have settled in Canada to a new and very different citizenship model has changed their understanding of the relationship between the individual and the state. She bases her analysis on oral history interviews with 13 Chinese-Bruneians who migrated to the Greater Vancouver area between 1974 and 2011. The Jury was impressed by this original data collection and the manner in which both the methodology and the findings are presented, concluding that this well-refined and informative sociological study provides a useful contribution to deepening the understanding of statelessness. The Jury further made an honourary mention of Ms. Sára Heinik’s undergraduate level work entitled The Elimination and Reduction of Statelessness in International Law-making and its Effectiveness. This thesis, submitted to Corvinus University of Budapest (Hungary) as part of an undergraduate programme on International Relations, provides a comprehensive and well-written overview of international law governing the problem of statelessness.

In the graduate category, the jury named two winners. The first is Eva Mrekajová, whose Master of Laws thesis on the "Naturalization of Stateless Persons" was nominated by the Department of International and European Law at Tilburg University. Mrekajová undertakes a highly methodical comparative study of the legal practice surrounding the naturalisation of stateless people in three European states. The second winner is Caroline McInerney, whose independent study paper entitled "Citizenship Laws of Madagascar: Future Challenges for a Developing Nation" was nominated by the University of Virginia School of Law in the United States. McInerney presents an extensive review of the content of the Malagasy nationality regulations and identifies how the law is serving to create and perpetuate cases of statelessness in the country. Both of these students identified highly original research questions and, in working to answer them, they demonstrated a thorough understanding of the issues at stake and a strong analytical ability, such that their work offers a tangible contribution to furthering the study of statelessness.

Eva receiving her Award certificate from UNHCR's Director of International Protection, Volker Turk

No prize in the doctoral category was awarded this year, but the Jury was greatly impressed and encouraged by the diversity, ingenuity and quality of the undergraduate and graduate-level nominations received and, in its report, expressed confidence that “a new generation of talented young scholars will choose to pursue further studies in this field and looks forward to reviewing the fruits of this labour in years to come”. The Jury also made an honorary mention of Lindsey Kingston’s doctoral thesis entitled Legal Invisibility: Statelessness and Issue (Non) Emergence, which earned Kingston her PhD in social science from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University (United States) in 2010. In it, Kingston sets out to uncover and explain why some issues make it onto the international agenda and others do not, using statelessness as a case study. The Jury considered the thesis to be worthy of a special mention because it has clearly demonstrated the value of statelessness as a case study within research that explores related themes (in this case, issue-emergence) and hopes that it will serve as a source of inspiration to other young researchers in this respect. The Jury also pointed out that the fundamental question it identifies and dares to pose with regards to the ‘non-emergence’ of statelessness is an extremely pertinent and timely one, using its report to encourage all those concerned with pushing statelessness up the international agenda to give due consideration to the concrete, practical and valuable recommendations that Kingston draws from her research.

Background to the award…

In early 2013, UNHCR and Tilburg University’s Statelessness Programme invited academic institutions to nominate excellent research at the undergraduate, graduate and doctoral levels in the field of statelessness for the newly established UNHCR Award for Statelessness Research. In this, its inaugural year, a total of 15 nominations were received, spread across the three award categories. The nominations were submitted by academic staff from 13 different universities, across eight countries. The research represented a variety of disciplines, including international law, political theory, sociology, international relations, social science and cultural psychology.

Following a detailed review by a committee within Tilburg Law School, a shortlist of eligible, top-quality research pieces was drawn up and forwarded to the International Expert Jury for their assessment. In accordance with the Award guidelines, the papers and dissertations were judged on the basis of four main criteria: 1) Contribution to increasing understanding of the nature and scope of the problem of statelessness, identifying stateless populations and understanding the reasons which have led to statelessness; 2) Timeliness and importance of selected topic; 3) Quality of research; and 4) Quality of writing.

In 2013, the Jury members who assessed the undergraduate and graduate level nominations were: Prof. Kohki Abe (Kanagawa University, Japan), Prof. Khadija Elmadmad (Rabat University, Morocco), Dr. Benyam Mezmur (University of the Western Cape, South Africa), Prof. Peter Spiro (Temple University, United States) and Prof. Carmen Tiburcio (Rio de Janeiro State University, Brazil). The Jury members who assessed the doctoral level research were: Prof. René de Groot (Maastricht University, the Netherlands), Dr. Sriprapha Petcharamesree (Mahidol University, Thailand) and Prof. Kim Rubenstein (Australian National University, Australia). The Jury was co-chaired by Mr Mark Manly (Senior Legal Coordinator Statelessness, UNHCR) and Dr Laura van Waas (Tilburg University’s Statelessness Programme) who reviewed all of the nominated work and jointly compiled the Jury report presented below, based on the assessments made by all of the aforementioned Jury members.

In early 2014, UNHCR and Tilburg University will put out a new joint call for nominations of students’ work which offers a clear contribution to increasing understanding of the nature and scope of the problem of statelessness, identifying stateless populations and understanding the reasons which have led to statelessness, in particular in regions or within disciplines where little research has been done. The 2014 UNHCR Award for Statelessness Research Nomination Guidelines will be made available via the website of the Statelessness Programme and of UNHCR.

 

 

NHRIs and Statelessness: A survey sent and a first response!

A frequently cited statistic is the UNHCR estimate that there are around 12 million stateless people worldwide. Although the right to a nationality is guaranteed under Article 15 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; the existence of such a large stateless population worldwide exhibits a clear failure by governments to ensure full implementation of this right. Absence of a nationality can result in people suffering further human rights violations. Thus it is crucial to ensure the right to a nationality is implemented as a first step in achieving compliance with international human rights.

National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs) are charged with the mandate to “protect and promote human rights”. Like many innovations in the field of human rights, the concept first arose following the Second World War. Currently there are over 100 NHRIs operating worldwide, with the number of institutions continuing to increase.

 A few weeks ago a survey was sent to NHRIs the world over. This survey forms part of a study on the extent of NHRI engagement in the issue of statelessness; and to establish the context in which this engagement occurs. Through communication with the Netherlands NHRI, the Netherlands Human Rights Institute, it has become clear that there is interest in developing a means of inter NHRI co-operation and co-ordination on the issue of statelessness. Furthermore there is interest in raising awareness of the issue of statelessness amongst NHRIs.

In light of such revelations it is intended that this study will compile and analyse survey responses in the hope of being able to assist NHRIs on the issue of statelessness. The survey distributed to NHRIs asks questions on topics such as the experience of the NHRI with the issue of statelessness, action taken by the NHRI to prevent statelessness, protecting the rights of stateless people, and co-operation and co-ordination in addressing the issue of statelessness.

It is encouraging that a survey response has been already received from the office of the Ombudsman of Croatia. We are grateful for the interest shown so far and are looking forward to hearing from other NHRIs.

Over the next two months this blog will be used to document progress made on the study, and to provide information on what has been discovered along the way.

Monica Neal, 2013 Summer Intern with the Statelessness Programme

UNHCR’s verdict on statelessness activities over last two years: “unprecedented”

Every other year, UNHCR produces a report summarising the progress made in addressing statelessness. It discusses important international trends and developments, as well as UNHCR’s own activities and achievements. In other words, it’s a very nice little snapshot of what has been happening and this time around there is more to report than ever before. UNHCR’s overall verdict on the current interest and momentum in addressing statelessness…? “Unprecedented”. Here are some of the most interesting highlights from the report:

UNHCR’s commitment to statelessness

Often criticised in the past for not engaging enough on its statelessness mandate, things have changed dramatically within UNHCR over the last few years and there are now some key institutional arrangements that will help the agency to work more effectively on statelessness. According to the report:

“UNHCR’s four pillar budget structure (which is broken down by particular population groups including pillar II for stateless persons), global strategic priorities and results-based framework for planning and reporting have permitted field offices to establish specific objectives and set budgets for activities relating to statelessness which are visible and distinct from those for refugees and other persons of concern. This has ensured that responses to the statelessness problem are given due attention in relevant operations. Progress made in this regard may be measured by the number of UNHCR operations which set objectives relating to statelessness: from 28 operations in 2009, the number rose to 51 in 2010 and 60 in 2011, remaining at this level in 2012. A similar rise occurred in budgets and expenditure. […] UNHCR has strengthened its global response to statelessness, both in terms of reach and also the quality of its interventions, through increased staffing capacity. The High Commissioner’s protection capacity initiative of 2011-2012 led to the creation of five dedicated regional statelessness posts covering Asia and the Pacific, Europe, West Africa, the Americas and the Middle East and North Africa. These posts were filled in 2012 and 2013, and they have significantly bolstered the capacity of field offices in these regions. […] Significant effort was made to bolster the capacity of staff through training and the provision of additional operational guidance. […] Statelessness workshops were organized in four regions for over 110 field staff, while workshops at headquarters reached more than 100 staff.”

Governments’ commitment to statelessness

While the actual reduction of statelessness or improvement of the lives of stateless people can be the only real measure of governments’ commitment to statelessness, it is also interesting to look at whether and how statelessness features on governments’ agendas. There are encouraging signs that statelessness is now being taken more seriously and that government commitment – on the surface at least – is increasing:

“The anniversary of the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness in 2011 proved to be a breakthrough in UNHCR’s efforts to achieve progress on statelessness around the world. At the Ministerial Intergovernmental Event, 61 States made a total of 105 specific and measurable pledges relating to statelessness. These pledges included: 32 on accession to the 1961 Convention; 22 on accession to the 1954 Convention; 12 to reform nationality laws; 12 to improve civil registration to prevent and reduce statelessness; 12 to conduct studies or awareness-raising campaigns; 11 to establish statelessness determination procedures; and 4 to address the problem through foreign policy initiatives. […] Currently, 22 per cent of the pledges made have been implemented. Significantly, there were 26 accessions to the 1954 and 1961 Statelessness Conventions during the two years covered by this report.”

Strengthening other partnerships to address statelessness

Building a comprehensive and successful response to statelessness is a task that cannot be left to governments and UNHCR alone, but in which many other partners can and must contribute. As with the progress statelessness has made in climbing the agendas of governments and within UNHCR itself, so too is it gathering further support from a broad range of stakeholders in every region:

“The Office worked to expand its partnerships and benefited from the increased interest in statelessness generated by the anniversary of the 1961 Convention in 2011. It supported a major symposium of the African Union in Nairobi, Kenya, which explored a range of statelessness issues and adopted a number of recommendations. This was followed by the adoption of a resolution on statelessness and the right to nationality by the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights. UNHCR also undertook two workshops with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Inter-Governmental Human Rights Commission on issues relating to the nationality of women and children and birth registration. In the Americas, UNHCR supported a workshop on statelessness for staff and permanent missions of the Organization of American States, as requested by its General Assembly. The Office briefed the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and provided background information on statelessness to the Commissioner of Human Rights of the Council of Europe. It also worked more intensively with the High Commissioner on National Minorities of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, including on the organization of the Zagreb Conference on the Provision of Civil Status Documentation and Registration in South Eastern Europe, which took place in October 2011. To promote action on statelessness by parliamentarians, UNHCR provided a number of briefings to the Inter-Parliamentary Union. […] In 2012, UNHCR organized a session to promote information exchange, joint strategizing and coalition-building among NGOs. Twenty-six organizations from 13 countries attended, and a follow-up event will be held in 2013.” [= recent NGOconsultations and statelessness retreat which we reported about last month onthis blog]

Law reform to prevent and reduce statelessness

A pivotal component of the response to statelessness is to put in place legal frameworks that safeguard the right to a nationality. In other words, by reforming nationality laws to e.g. remove discrimination or incorporate special provisions that will help to prevent statelessness among children, the suffering that comes with statelessness can simply be avoided. Nationality laws around the world undergo regular amendments and the trick is to use these as opportunities to improve the safety-nets against statelessness and certainly to ensure that the legal framework does not deteriorate:

“During the reporting period, a total of 14 States amended their nationality legislation to strengthen safeguards against statelessness. UNHCR observed several broad trends in nationality laws during this period, including removal of legal provisions leading to loss of nationality for residence  abroad, removal of requirements to renounce nationality before applying for naturalization, and inclusion of safeguards to prevent statelessness owing to voluntary renunciation of citizenship. Consultations with governments in the lead-up to the Ministerial Intergovernmental Event provided an opportunity to discuss problematic elements of nationality laws and possible amendments to address them. Twelve governments made pledges on law reform to prevent and reduce statelessness.”

Resolving cases of statelessness

Millions of people are affected by statelessness around the world and some situations of statelessness have become so protracted that they have engulfed several successive generations, which has a massive social, political, psychological and economic impact on these communities. In 2012, UNHCR High Commissioner Guterres called on all states “to make a firm commitment to ending statelessness within the next decade”. For this to happen, finding ways to resolve statelessness is critical. Progress in this area is steady, but it needs to pick up speed if this goal is to be attainable:

“There was slow but steady progress in reducing statelessness in a number of countries, though no breakthrough that led to a major reduction in the global population. The data available to UNHCR showed that more than 115,000 people acquired a nationality or had it confirmed in 2011 and approximately 94,600 in 2012. This was similar to the progress achieved during the previous reporting period. […]The Office continued to advocate for solutions to a number of protracted statelessness situations. The anniversary of the 1961 Convention again allowed for significant consultations with governments on solutions. One encouraging development was the willingness of a small number of States to discuss their own successful efforts to resolve statelessness situations, thereby encouraging others to follow their example. There was also an increased understanding among States that prolonged statelessness can lead to displacement and unrest. This was underlined by the continuing outflows of Rohingya refugees without nationality from Myanmar and the spike in departures following communal violence there in 2012.”

The Statelessness Programme and UNHCR

Tilburg University’s Statelessness Programme – the hosts of this blog – was established in 2011, so at the beginning of the period which UNHCR has now reported on. It is encouraging to see that the cooperation between the Statelessness Programme and UNHCR throughout these two years is also noted and some of the activities get an explicit mention:

“With the goal of reaching a higher number of staff and partners, and with a related objective of building institutional capacity, the Office supported short courses organized by external actors, including Oxford University, Tilburg University, the Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network, Mahidol University and the European Network on Statelessness. […] It worked with the universities of Tilburg, Maastricht and New South Wales as well as the Open Society Foundations to develop a global analytical database of nationality laws. [...] In collaboration with Tilburg University, the Office will hold the First Global Forum on Statelessness [in 2014] at which up to 300 representatives of academic and international institutions, governments NGOs and statelessness populations from around the world will present their research, responses and experiences related to statelessness.”

What is next?

This edition of UNHCR’s note on statelessness ends on an encouraging note. Rightly so, given in particular the institutional progress and the signs of increased – “unprecedented” – commitment and engagement by UNHCR and a range of other actors. At the same time, the report also correctly points out that turning this commitment and engagement into real change on the ground remains a challenge and there is much more to be done:

“UNHCR’s activities under its statelessness mandate were enhanced during the two years covered by this report. This was in part due to the organization-wide focus on statelessness during the anniversary of the 1961 Convention in 2011, but it also reflects a longer-term trend. There was an unprecedented impact in terms of action by States, including a significant number of accessions and the adoption of new determination procedures. The number of pledges made by governments at the 2011 Ministerial Intergovernmental Event suggests further progress will be made in the coming years. While impressive, these developments pale in comparison to the magnitude of the problem. There was only limited progress toward resolution of protracted situations. If the international community is to be successful in meeting the challenges posed by statelessness globally, the momentum of the past two years must be maintained and channeled towards acquisition of nationality by stateless persons.”

Statelessness Programme 2012 international internship winner: "looking ahead to 6 months in Bangkok"

The Statelessness Programme's first ever International Statelessness Internship Award recipient is the very bright, motivated and sociable Sangita Jaghai. After nearly a year of interning with the Statelessness Programme in Tilburg, she is now about to embark on her international  internship - sponsored by the Statelessness Programme - in Bangkok. In this first blog post, she looks ahead to what she is expecting of the experience over the coming 6 months...

 

How the location and organization was selected

6 months ago,  Laura van Waas (manager & founder of the Statelessness Programme) made enquiries with Mark Manly, the Head of the Statelessness Unit at the UNHCR headquarters in Geneva about the possibility of hosting an intern at a UNHCR office for 6 months. UNHCR recommended an internship at the regional hub in Bangkok because the magnitude of the issue within the region and a great team working on statelessness at the Regional Coordinator’s Office would offer a good learning environment for an intern.

 

Laura consulted me about this option, she was very positive about an internship at the regional office in Bangkok but mentioned that it was also possible to look into other placements if I wanted to. I preferred to fulfill my internship in Thailand and UNHCR gave its approval for an internship period  as of 4 March until 16 August 2013.

What I expect to be doing during the internship

Under supervision of the Regional Protection Officer (Statelessness) I, firstly, expect to focus on developing a methodology which 1) compares citizenship laws of ASEAN member states against international standards related to the prevention and reduction of statelessness and 2) can identify conflicts or gaps in citizenship law that will arise in the context of migration between ASEAN member states, as well as through marriage between citizens of different member states. Secondly, I expect also to concentrate on good practices that exist in the region as regards reforming nationality law, regulations or implementation to reduce and prevent statelessness. Findings of this research have to be written down in a report.

If sufficient time remains, materials for future internal and external UNHCR training on the prevention and reduction of statelessness through nationality law reform and implementation will be produced or reviewed.  My duties and responsibilities are very well explained in the TORs.

What I hope to offer the host organization and learn from the experience

I am hoping to put into practice knowledge that I have gained during my internship at the Statelessness Programme.  My internship project  in Tilburg mainly focused on statelessness in the Dutch legal context and plenty of opportunities were given to learn more on statelessness in the international legal context as well. For instance, I took the course on nationality, statelessness and human rights. The legal analysis classes that were given back then will now be of good help during my internship.

Besides that, I participated in a summer course on statelessness held at Tilburg University. It was very informative because researchers, experts, and people working in the fields from all over the world gathered for one week and shared their experiences working on statelessness.

To conclude, what I would like to learn from the experience here in Bangkok is to better understand the legal context of statelessness  in South East Asia and the challenges that are being  faced within region. Seeing how UNHCR performs its mandate to prevent and reduce statelessness in practice  is a learning experience on itself already. Looking at my internship project, I hope to learn how to develop a decent methodology to assess nationality laws of the ASEAN member states and analyze nationality laws efficiently. I also wish to be guided  throughout the process of writing a clear and comprehensive  analysis report based on the findings. It would also be amazing to learn more on how teaching material is being developed for training sessions on statelessness.

Sangita Jaghai, International Statelessness Internship Award recipient 2012

Tilburg hosts successful pilot of statelessness course

Between the 23^rd and the 27^th July, a bright sunny Tilburg welcomed the gathering of thirty participants and eight lecturers assembling to discuss the phenomenon of statelessness.  The first Summer School on Statelessness, an initiative by the Statelessness Programme at Tilburg Law School and the Open Society Justice Initiative, successfully provided a stimulating curriculum and atmosphere for all involved.  Through lectures, case-studies, discussions and group-work the Course covered many of the topical theoretical and practical issues stemming from the notion of statelessness. The Course equally draw significantly from the participants experiences which came from around the world, including Burundi, Kazakhstan, Thailand, South Africa, Mexico and Slovenia amongst many others, and which ranged from differing fields, such as UNHCR, NGO’s, academia, and government.

Over the past few years the international community has witnessed a growing concern of the true magnitude and impact of statelessness, however, much work remains to be done in terms of developing a full understanding of the phenomenon and importantly in building the required capacity to address some of the attached problems.  It was with these two gaps in mind that the Statelessness Summer Course provided an interesting forum in offering a unique opportunity for learning, reflecting and discussing the challenges that statelessness presents and, importantly, trying to develop tangible strategies to work on the issue.  Beginning with a reflection on the concept of statelessness and nationality, the course went on to deal with legal and policy issues associated with statelessness such as the status of stateless persons, their human rights and right to international protection and ways to research and document statelessness.   The course included smaller team work on regional issues where participants were able to tailor the knowledge they had acquired towards trends and issues that affected their regions.

Lecturers also came from a varied background with differing focuses, enriching further the debate.  These included Prof. Dr. Gerard-René de Groot Professor of Law at the Universiteit Maastricht,   Gábor Gyulai from  the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, Julia Harrington Reddy and Sebastian Kohn from the  Equality and Citizenship program at the Open Society Justice Initiative, Mark Manly head of the Statelessness Unit at UNHCR, Dr. Benyam Mezmur research fellow at the University of Western Cape, Prof. Dr. Sriprapha Petcharamesree lecturer at the Institute of Human Rights Studies and Peace Studies, Mahidol University, Thailand and Zahra Albarazi from the Statelessness Programme.  These experts had a mélange of academic knowledge and practical and regional experience to offer.

The most interesting feature was the way in which participants and the lecturers were able to benefit from the knowledge and professional experience of both the lecturers and their fellow participants.  The week concluded with an action-oriented session which saw the participants discuss how they plan to work more on this issue following the end of the Course.  We are looking forward to following up on how these proposed initiatives develop and are excited that the course has been successful in developing a strong and enthusiastic network of future advocators.

We would like to thank everyone who took part and hope to be able to welcome a new group to Tilburg at a future edition of the Statelessness Summer Course!

Zahra Albarazi, Statelessness Programme, Tilburg Law School

No Country, No Identity, No Rights?

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