Introducing… Ivan Kochovski, intern assisting with research on nationality and statelessness in the MENA region

As I have been a part of the Statelessness Programme for a couple of months now, it is time to introduce myself and the work I have been doing at the Programme. My name is Ivan Kochovski and I am a LLM candidate at Tilburg University following the International and European Public Law programme with a specialisation in International Law and Human Rights. As of October 2012 I am an intern at the Statelessness Programme working on the “Nationality and Statelessness in the Middle East and North Africa Project” (MENA Project).

Supervised by both Dr. Van Waas and Ms. Albarazi, I am working on compiling fact-sheets on the situation of statelessness and nationality in each of the MENA countries using country reports prepared by local experts. Recently, I have also been working on a report examining the manner in which the issue of gender discrimination in terms of nationality has been dealt with for the MENA countries at the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) - the first universal review process examining all human rights questions in every UN country.

Statelessness is not an easy topic to get involved with. This is not to say that it is extremely difficult, but it is challenging nevertheless. While discussing some of the misconceptions I had about statelessness with my supervisors and colleagues and working on the MENA region, I realized that statelessness is not simply a problem of badly drafted nationality laws or inaccessible nationality procedures that rendered certain people without a nationality. Some of its main causes lie deeply rooted in the past and present political power relations within the countries and the region. The Bidoon in the Gulf Region, the Kurds in Syria, and the Palestinians in the Levant are just some of the groups that have been left stateless due to specific political reasons. This does not mean that the nationality laws of the MENA countries are not deeply problematic or that there aren’t issues with the procedures, but rather that the causes of statelessness are a combination of both legislative and political factors.

For instance, Jordan has a gendered nationality law and does not allow women to transfer their nationality to their children or spouses. Even though such discriminatory legislation can be seen as a purely legal matter, the issue becomes more complex with the fact that there are many Jordanian women married to non-nationals and the country is host to a large stateless Palestinian population. One of the reasons the Jordanian leadership has been reluctant to amend the nationality law, to allow women to pass on their nationality, has been the fear that allowing such a large number of non-nationals to acquire citizenship will create a shift in the demographics and the political constituency, possibly leading to unforeseeable political turmoil. Leaving aside politics for a moment, one must not forget the predicament of the stateless. The recent research of Ms. Albarazi in Jordan showed that many of the stateless in Jordan live in conditions of extreme poverty with no access to healthcare and with no prospects of meaningful education or employment. The discriminatory provisions do not create only problems for the women and their spouses, but perhaps most worryingly for their children. Some of the interviewed women have indicated that their children have no future. The only way out of that situation for the girls is to marry a national and acquire his citizenship. The boys, who have no such possibility of regularizing their status, often drift between illegal jobs and are strongly discouraged by their parents from marrying or having children because that will create only further problems as they will not be able to provide for their family and will transfer the same predicament to the future generations.

Going back to the influence of politics on the issue of statelessness, perhaps the most prominent example in recent years of how nationality can be used as a strong political tool is the 2011 decree issued by Al-Asad’s government allowing a portion of the stateless Syrian Kurds to acquire citizenship. In the 1960’s as part of its Arabization policies the Baath government denationalized more than 20 percent of the Kurdish population. After the civil war broke out in early 2011, the government, in order to gain the support of the Kurdish population adopted a decree that would allow more than half of the 300 000 stateless Kurds to acquire a citizenship. Even though there is limited information on whether this procedure has been implemented and perhaps statelessness is not the top priority in Syria at the moment taking into account the heinous atrocities being committed there, the 2011 decree is one of the clearest examples of how nationality can and is being used for political gains by governments. Syria’s nationality laws are also discriminatory towards women and there are reportedly more than 100,000 women married to non-nationals. As was the case with Jordan, one can see that the issue here is not purely political or purely legal. The Syrian government has also feared that granting more than 100,000 men married to Syrian women and their children nationality might cause a shift in the political dynamics of the state. As in Jordan, the stateless in Syria have lived in dire conditions for years and since the escalation of the violence the situation has grown worse.

There are many more such examples both from the MENA region and other regions in the world. The Nubians in Kenya, the non-citizens in Latvia, the Roma in the Balkans, the Rohingya in Myanmar and the Haitians in the Dominican Republic are just some of the groups in other parts of the world whose condition has been created due to both political and legal factors and continues to be detrimental due to both political reluctance to solve the issue and a lack of appropriate legal and humanitarian protection.

But what does this all mean in terms of solving the issue? Where do we find a solution? Do we look for a single solution or do we search for solutions in all aspects of the problem that would require more time? Given the limited resources, should one focus on the humanitarian side of the issue by trying to eliminate the extreme poverty and dire living conditions rampant among these populations or focus on pressuring states to live up to their human rights obligations and provide protection for these groups? Should short term goals, such as providing immediate humanitarian assistance, or long term goals, such as pressuring states to adopt legislation that would provide safeguards against statelessness, be a priority? Should the focus be on reminding the international community of its responsibility towards protecting stateless individuals? Or maybe even lobbing for the adoption of more effective measures in dealing with statelessness on the international legal and political level?

I do not have the answers to all of these questions. However I do think that in order to deal with the problem effectively the focus should be placed on all factors rather than just one. Even though this might sound too optimistic, the complex nature of the issue of statelessness necessitates a more comprehensive approach that would deal with the various factors on the local, national and international level. Exploring some of these specific factors and possible solutions to statelessness would require a different blog post or a more elaborate study. Nevertheless, by working on the MENA region both through the fact sheets and the report on how the UPR procedure has death with the issue of gender discrimination and nationality I continue to discover and grow to understand the specific aspects of the issue of statelessness in the MENA.

Ivan Kochovski, Statelessness Programme intern

GUEST POST: A Global Campaign to End Statelessness - The Time Has Come

For too long statelessness has remained a sleeper issue. This is surprising considering that UNHCR's latest statistics confirm 3.5 million stateless persons worldwide and estimate that the number is closer to 12 million. Furthermore, the problem has persisted all around the globe.  

In Europe, the break-up of the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia produced millions of stateless persons who fell between the cracks of new nationality criteria adopted by successor States or were unable to satisfy administrative requirements for acquisition of a new nationality.  Historically, racial and ethnic discrimination (often codified in law) against minorities has been a major cause of statelessness. Twenty-six countries found in the Americas, Africa, Asia and the Middle East, still retain nationality laws which prevent women from passing on their nationality to their children on an equal basis as fathers, thus creating a risk of statelessness that can be passed down from generation to generation. Recent flare-ups, from the violence between the Rakhine and Muslims in Myanmar to protests by the Bidoun in Kuwait, find a common denominator in decades-long statelessness situations in these States.

Since its creation, UNHCR has worked to provide international protection and find durable solutions for stateless refugees who are covered by its Statute and by the 1951 Refugee Convention. However, it was only in 1995 that the UN General Assembly passed a resolution conferring upon the Agency a global mandate to identify and protect stateless people and to undertake activities to prevent and reduce statelessness. At the Ministerial Meeting convened by UNHCR in 2011 to mark the 50^th anniversary of the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, an unprecedented number of States pledged to take action on statelessness: to prevent and reduce the problem and to recognise the status of stateless people. More than 30 countries undertook to accede, or take steps to accede, to one or both of the Statelessness Conventions.

Implementation of many of these pledges will be assisted by the issuance of recent UNHCR Guidance on: the definition of a stateless person; the establishment of statelessness determination procedures; the status to be afforded to stateless persons when they have been identified; and forthcoming guidelines on preventing statelessness amongst children in accordance with the principles of the 1961 Statelessness Convention.

Although the last few years have witnessed a heightened awareness of the plight of stateless people and an increased willingness on behalf of States to address statelessness, there is still a need for a global groundswell of concerted and coordinated action by various actors, including civil society groups, scholars, the media and affected individuals themselves, to end statelessness. Given the links between the causes and consequences of statelessness and other well-supported human rights issues, including gender discrimination, children’s rights and prevention of arbitrary detention, part of the task is to better understand the points at which these issues and statelessness intersect and to engage a wider pool of advocates to include action on statelessness as part of their advocacy strategies.

To encourage this process, on 3 July 2012, UNHCR convened an informal half-day strategy meeting on the margins of its 2012 Annual NGO Consultations.  A total of 26 NGO representatives participated from organizations working on statelessness based in 13 countries across Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas.  Key proposals to increase action and awareness on statelessness by NGOs and to advance a global network or coalition to end statelessness included:

• advocacy by international and field-based NGOs on statelessness concerns before international human rights mechanisms (for example, the Universal Periodic Review, treaty bodies and special procedures);

• action to ensure implementation of State pledges relating to statelessness made at the Ministerial Meeting in December 2011;

• improvement of existing and creation of new opportunities for collaboration between UNHCR and NGOs to address statelessness; and

• development of a global matrix of NGOs working on statelessness  to improve networking, coordination and joint action, including advocacy within the UN system.

UNHCR is very pleased to see the emergence of the European Network on Statelessness (ENS). The actors working on statelessness need to set ambitious objectives to address this global problem.  A first step towards our common goals is to involve a greater number of organisations, to ensure better coordination and exchange of information and to develop a common research and advocacy agenda.  ENS is leading the way at the European level.

For a range of documentation on statelessness, please visit UNNHCR's Refworld page: http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/statelessness.html

Mark Manly, Head UNHCR Statelessness Unit and Radha Govil, UNHCR


This Blog originally appeared on the website of the European Network on Statelessness (www.statelessness.eu), a civil society alliance committed to address statelessness in Europe, of which the Statelessness Programme is a founding member.