GUEST POST: Inter-American Court condemns unprecedented situation of statelessness in the Dominican Republic

Francisco Quintana at a hearing before the I-A Commission
speaking on behalf of the umbrella organisations in
DR "Dominicanos por Derechos". (Photo/OAS)

On October 22nd, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (I-A Court) published its judgment in the Case of Expelled Dominican and Haitian people vs Dominican Republic. The case involved 6 families who were expelled from that country between 1999 and 2000. Out of the 26 victims, only five individuals were Haitian nationals. The families were represented by CEJIL and three other organizations. The ruling touched upon the problem of discrimination based on skin color; immigration detention; and the “systematic practice of collective expulsions”. At the heart of the ruling is the issue of prevention and reduction of statelessness. Since 13 of the victims were children, the ruling developed some of these rights from the “best interest of the child” perspective.

Background

For almost 100 years (for a fuller analysis see here) the Dominican Republic (DR) has allowed, either by state-control or private contracts, the arrival of Haitian workers, who were subjected to poverty and marginalization derived from their irregular status. International and regional human rights bodies, including UNHCR, UNICEF, CEDAW, CRC, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the OAS Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) have expressed their deep concern about the discrimination and mass violation of to the right to nationality that Haitian migrants and their descendants have been suffering.

From the 1950s to 1990s, a significant number of children of Haitian descent born in the Dominican Republic were formally recognized as citizens by registry officials. During that period, there was a reasonable application of identification required for the parents to register their children’s births. In the last two decades of the 20th century, some civil registry officials began requiring official proof of identity, such as passports or residence cards. The IACHR detected this problem early in 1999: “children do not have documents because their parents have none.”

Since 1929, the supreme law of the land had consistently established that people “in transit” were one of the two exceptions to the ius soli regime in the DR, with the other being the children of diplomats. Domestic civil law established 10 days as the maximum amount of time one can be “in transit.” It was not until the 1980s that this concept was applied more rigidly.

Legislative and Constitutional Changes

In 2004, the DR reformed its immigration law to incorporate the requirement of legal residence of foreign parents as the basis for their children’s acquisition of Dominican nationality. This criterion was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2005, which established a broad interpretation of the “in transit” exception. In the period of 2007-2009, Dominican authorities adopted a series of administrative and judicial actions that made it virtually impossible to obtain nationality at birth for those affected. During that time, a consistent process of arbitrary deprivation of nationality began, even for people who had enjoyed that right for 10, 20, 30 or more years.

In 2010, the new Dominican Constitution solidified the interpretation of the law used in the last decade by incorporating a new exception to the ius soli regime: the children of undocumented residents.

Judicial Denationalization on a Massive Scale

On September 23^rd, 2013, people of foreign parents born on Dominican soil dating back to 1929 did not know if their nationality was going to be respected. Their own Constitutional Tribunal had deprived them of that right (TC ruling 168/13) by upholding the previous Supreme Court decision. According to an official survey by the Dominican National Bureau for Statistics, an estimated 200,000 persons were affected by the decision. The numbers could be greater, as these figures only incorporate the first generation of the affected group. To date, the Dominican authorities have only recognized less than 25,000 people, of which only 60% are of Haitian descent.

The implementing law of the TC ruling (Law 169/14) does not conceptualize people born in the DR to foreign parents before 2007 as Dominicans. Although the language could seem neutral on its face, it has a clearly disproportionate impact on Dominicans of Haitian descent. Law 16/14 divided the affected population in two groups. The first group, who according to the preamble of the law “believed” they were nationals because they received official documents, would obtain nationality because the State recognized its own administrative mistake, not because they were born on its soil. The second group, who lacked any kind of document, was directly classified as foreigners in their own country and obligated to follow a naturalization process.

Inter-American Justice returns to the Dominican Republic

In December 2013, the IACHR visited the island again only to realize that its previous findings had multiplied by hundreds of thousands. In the landmark decision of the Case of the Girls Yean and Bosico (2005), the Inter-American Court established for the first time that the right to nationality could not be limited based on discriminatory purposes, and that the migration status of the parents could not be inherited by their children for the purposes of denying nationality. The Court also stressed the importance of the prevention and reduction of statelessness when the place of birth is the only requisite that should be considered for those people that could not acquire a nationality different from that of the country where they were born.

Nine years later, in the Case of Expelled Dominicans and Haitians (2014) ruling, the Inter-American Court restated its interpretation of Dominican domestic law when it affirmed that it did not find any reason to change the Yean and Bosico standard. On the contrary, the Court took this opportunity to expand its reasoning, when it declared that:

   a.      The TC ruling 168/13 had retroactively deprived all children born to undocumented foreign parents since 1929 of their nationality. (para. 313)

   b.      The criteria used by the TC is discriminatory and contrary to the principle of equality before the law, since it ignores the characteristics of the person born in the DR and focuses on the lack of documentation of their parents, without justifying this distinction.(para. 318)

    c.      The implementing Law 169/14 creates additional obstacles to the full enjoyment of the right to nationality, because it requires affected persons to register as foreigners in their country of birth. This naturalization process is thus per se contrary to the right to nationality in a country with a jus soli regime.

    d.      An expedited naturalization procedure for a person that is already entitled to a nationality, irrespective of the time it could last, is contrary to the full enjoyment of that right. (para. 324).

   e.      The obligation to prevent statelessness requires States to have full assurance that immediately after birth a child would have an effective nationality; absent that situation, the Inter-American Court declared an ex lege (automatic) obligation to grant the nationality of the State where the child was born. (paras. 259 to 261)

   f.       The Court ordered the Dominican government to take all steps – including at the constitutional, legislative or judicial level – in order to leave the TC ruling 168, and part of Law 169/14, without legal effect. (para. 469)

Déjà vu reaction of the Dominican government

In 2005, a month after the Yean and Bosico judgment was issued, Dominican authorities called the decision “unacceptable” and declared that there was an intent to “discredit” the country before the international community. One week later the Dominican Senate acted in the same direction by rejecting the ruling of the Inter-American Court. The 2005 Supreme Court decision previously mentioned also confronted directly this decision.

In 2014, the new Inter-American Court ruling has already sparked the same xenophobic and anti-Haitian sentiments of the past. Despite the fact that there had been unanimous condemnation of the massive judicial deprivation of nationality carried out by the TC 168/13 ruling, the Dominican government continues to deny that discrimination or statelessness even exists in the country. Only 48 hours after the ruling was made public, the Dominican Republic Executive branch issued a statement rejecting the ruling in very strong language and bringing up the ancient argument that its own notions of State sovereignty exempt it from compliance with its binding, freely accepted international human rights obligations.

Conclusion

The Inter-American Court has set a clear example of how justice should be done when States arbitrarily limit, deny or deprive persons of their right to nationality. In a public statement CEJIL has emphasized that the decisions of the Court should never be considered an attack to the sovereignty of any State, but rather an affirmation of a way forward to respect the human rights of all. The Dominican government has to understand that under international law and the American Convention on Human Rights, compliance with this judgment is a binding obligation that cannot be ignored.

The impact that this new ruling could have in other regions of the world where similar judicial restrictions, ambiguous or discriminatory interpretations of the law are implemented is unquestionable. We expect that the international community, academia, and civil society around the world will take the time to read the judgment and support the struggle for justice and dignity of hundreds of thousands of people around the world who, just as in the Dominican Republic, are being deprived of the full enjoyment of their right to nationality.

Francisco Quintana, Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL) 

[This blog was simultaneously posted on the website of the European Network on Statelessness]

UNHCR 2014 Statelessness Research Award interviews... Maria Jose Recalde Vela

"The vulnerability of stateless persons to all sorts of human rights violations made me want to somehow help make their situation a little bit better. What I find so heart-breaking about statelessness is precisely the impact this phenomenon has on the individual’s identity: being told you do not belong in the place you identify with can be devastating, as it can make one question who one really is." 

In this series of blog posts, we are asking the students honoured in this year's UNHCR Award for Statelessness Research about their experiences studying the phenomenon on statelessness and their research findings. Third in the series is Ms. Maria Jose Recalde Vela whose thesis How can identity assert a claim to citizenship? In search of a safeguard against statelessness from a legal and socio-psychological perspective.  submitted in completion of the Liberal Arts Programme at Tilburg University (the Netherlands), was chosen by the Jury as the Best Research in the Graduate Category.

Could you summarise, in 2 or 3 sentences, what your research was about?

My research was about exploring how a person’s identity develops in relation to the place and groups a person is influenced by (such as the place one grows up in and the society one grows up around) and whether this identity can somehow be used as a safeguard against statelessness.

What first got you interested in the problem of statelessness?

I first became interested in the problem of statelessness after taking the course at Tilburg University taught by Dr. van Waas during my second year of Liberal Arts and Sciences. I had never heard of stateless before; until I took the course I never even though there were people in this planet without a nationality! Nationality is something that we take for granted, so it is very shocking to find out that there’s around 10 million people without a nationality. What got me so interested in the issue is that the impact statelessness has on the individual is very deep. Stateless persons are not only deprived of basic civil and political rights such as voting for example, but are also affected at an individual and personal level. I am not sure if research has been done on this, but I am sure that statelessness has a massive impact in the individual’s mental and emotional well-being. The vulnerability of stateless persons to all sorts of human rights violations made me want to somehow help make their situation a little bit better. What I find so heart-breaking about statelessness is precisely the impact this phenomenon has on the individual’s identity: being told you do not belong in the place you identify with can be devastating, as it can make one question who one really is.

Why did you choose this particular research topic?

I always took nationality for granted, but at the same time, I was always confused by it. What was always strange is that I always felt like I am not from one single place, but from every place I have lived in. in my short years, I have lived in a few countries (so far, 4), and every time I moved to a new place I developed an attachment to that place, and I developed a feeling of belonging to that place, even if in paper it was not that way and in paper I have one nationality. I started thinking about this and while I was reading Dr. van Waas’ book I came across a section which describes what the “genuine link” is. The genuine link is the social fact of attachment of an individual with a state, and the genuine link is the basis for nationality. The ICJ described nationality as “a legal bond having as its basis a social fact of attachment, a genuine connection of existence.” So in other words, nationality is a legal reflection of this social fact of attachment between individual and state. But state not as in government; state as in, country, homeland, nation-state, etc. A place, a society. Then I started thinking how we develop these social facts of attachment with the places we live in and how this attachment shapes our identities. I felt like my identity has been heavily shaped by every country I have lived in, and this influence the places have had on my identity have contributed to my attachment to these places. I am attached to a place, I feel like I belong there, I have a social fact of attachment to this place. And what is nationality? A reflection of this social fact of attachment. If a person like me has become attached to a place and feels like she belongs there only from having lived a few years there, there is no way any state can tell me that a person who has lived his/her entire life in the same country, many times in the same area, has no social fact of attachment to that country and does not belong there. Many, if not most, stateless persons live their entire lives in the same place for a great number of reasons. However, the challenge for this was that it is not easy to prove a social fact of attachment; it is not something tangible, like a birth certificate for example. A social fact of attachment can mean anything! I thought maybe identity can help solve this problem. However, identity can also be anything! Therefore, I chose to focus on 3 socio-psychological theories that helped me to explain how a person’s identity develops in relation to the place and the society a person grows up in. while doing research, I came across an interesting principle that was proposed by Manley O Hudson: jus connectionis. I had only heard about the jus soli (law of the soil), jus sanguinis (law of blood) and jus domicili (law of residence) for nationality attribution. Jus connectionis? Never heard of it. But it caught my attention. Jus connectionis takes into consideration a person’s connections and identity for determining nationality. Jus connectionis, however, does not have the same status as jus sanguinis, jus soli and jus domicili; it is a theory, a thought, a proposal, an idea. But I thought it was definitely worth looking into, particularly since it could contribute to my search for a safeguard against statelessness.

Could you briefly describe how you went about your research? E.g. did you base it on existing sources – and were they easy to find? Did you do fieldwork or interviews – and what was that like?

I based my research 100% on existing sources; it was a literature review. Carrying out field research on this topic would be very helpful but very complicated due to language barriers and due to the fact that it would take a long time to carry out the interviews and process all the data. Therefore, I based it on all sorts of literature I was able to find. It was challenging to find the literature I needed for it, as you know, there is not much information out there on stateless persons. I was lucky to find some reports in which stateless persons described their feelings of belonging to the place where they had grown up their entire lives.

What was the greatest challenge you had to deal with in undertaking your research?

The greatest challenge was definitely finding literature, since there is not much information out there that can give us a clear view into the identities of stateless persons. One of the most difficult parts was reading and actually understanding the socio-psychological theories and being able to explain them in writing. In Liberal Arts and Sciences, I majored in law, so almost every course I took was a law course. Therefore, I was used to reading legal texts and understanding them. However, social sciences texts, particularly social psychology ones were very confusing for me! I took a few social sciences courses during my bachelor, but none on social psychology, so it was very challenging to read and understand the texts. It was also a lot of fun to get to explore an area that I found so interesting but I was very unfamiliar with.

Could you briefly summarise your main findings or conclusions – or what you think is the most important outcome of your research?

-Citizenship is the legal “confirmation” of a person’s belonging to a group; it cannot be determined simply by looking at a person (this is a rejection of ethnicity and race as the basis of citizenship). A “social fact of attachment” must be determined for citizenship to be properly attributed to an individual

-the social fact of attachment is not tangible; it is embedded in the individual’s identity, so it is important to see how this identity developed and what influenced it. The 3 theories of identity can help explain how identity develops in relation to place and group. Our identities are influenced by our surroundings and the people who surround us. It can be said that the development of our identity is influenced by the country we live in.

-the principles of jus soli and jus sanguinis, which are meant to prove membership through birth on the territory or through blood, are unable to prevent people from becoming stateless, due to strict application of these principles by some states. This strict application makes it easy to exclude people from the citizenry, even though many of these excluded persons have social facts of attachment with said state.

-the principle of jus connectionis which takes into account connections and attachment to a place fills this gap left by the jus soli and jus sanguinis principles. Therefore, the principle of jus connectionis, since it takes into account identity, could serve as a safeguard against statelessness for persons who are excluded from the citizenry since they have no legal claims to citizenship through birth or through blood but do have a claim through their social fact of attachment to their homeland.

Have you found it rewarding to research statelessness – why / why not?

I have found doing research on statelessness—and nationality—the most rewarding experience of my life. I was lucky to intern at the statelessness programme last semester and it was the best, and now I am writing my master thesis on nationality, which I absolutely love. While it focuses on nationality, the idea behind it is finding a new way to help stateless persons. Once you jump on the statelessness train, you won’t be getting off for a long time. There is still so much research to be done that you will never run out of ideas on new things to research on.

What tips would you give to students who are getting involved in statelessness research to help them? E.g. are there particular questions you think they should be looking at or methodological issues they should consider?

Find a topic you find interesting, it will make the process (it’s a long and considerably exhausting process) very enjoyable. I really hope someday someone can go out into the field and carry out interviews to find out more about the identities of the stateless individuals interviewed and maybe use some of the theoretical background I presented in my thesis and use their field results and see what happens! It would be a very large project that would benefit from an interdisciplinary approach, but if it ever happens I will definitely read that paper! I think in terms of finding concrete solutions for statelessness there is a lot of research that can be done, particularly looking into how specific countries or regions can find concrete solutions for statelessness in their territories or in the region. Theory-wise, there is so much to do! I am fascinated by the theoretical issues. For example finding the “core” of nationality, or finding concrete reasons to why this concept, which was meant to include and bond people over their belonging to a place, actually has left gaps in the law and its implementation that have rendered millions stateless. One of the problems I had was that there is not much literature out there, so any contributions to the literature are always welcome, and from any discipline! I am not an expert but I feel like statelessness cannot be addressed only from only one discipline: it is such a complex issue that it needs contributions from various disciplines for a better understanding of it, and I think that once we understand an issue it is easier to find concrete long-lasting solutions to it.

UNHCR 2014 Statelessness Research Award interviews... Caia Vlieks

"My research experiences during this project have been great. For me it was a perfect combination of doing truly legal research – studying case law of my favorite Court – and at the same time being able to use my own creativity – linking the interpretations of the Court to determination of a person’s statelessness – in order to contribute to the body of knowledge on the issue of statelessness and hopefully help stateless persons in claiming their rights in legal proceedings"

In this series of blog posts, we will be asking the students honoured in this year's UNHCR Award for Statelessness Research about their experiences studying the phenomenon on statelessness and their research findings. Second in the series is Ms. Caia Vlieks, whose masters thesis entitled "A European human rights obligation for statelessness determination?", written in completion of her LLM in International Human Rights Law at Tilburg University (the Netherlands), was chosen by the Jury as the Best Research in the Graduate Category.

Could you summarise, in 2 or 3 sentences, what your research was about?

My research explored whether it is possible to distil an obligation for states to determine a person’s statelessness from the European Convention on Human Rights. More specifically, the research project assessed the case law of the European Court of Human Rights on the articles of the Convention that have the clearest links with determination of statelessness. These are Article 3 (the prohibition of torture), Article 8 (the right to respect for private and family life), Article 13 (the right to an effective remedy) and Article 14 (the prohibition of torture).

What first got you interested in the problem of statelessness?

It was during the first year of my Research Master in Law at Tilburg University that I heard about statelessness. Credits go to the staff of the Statelessness Program at Tilburg University, who actively gave guest lectures during, for instance, a course on human rights law. Initially, my interest for the problem of statelessness focused on stateless Roma, but I learned that there are more groups affected by statelessness. What caught me was the legal limbo stateless persons find themselves in, and the grave consequences that this can have. Also, I discovered that there are many more legal aspects of statelessness have not been the topic of research, making it an even more interesting and deserving of further research.

Why did you choose this particular research topic?

As my knowledge on the topic of statelessness grew, I became fascinated by the definition of a stateless person in international law. This definition says that a stateless person is “a person who is not considered as a national by any state under the operation of its law”. However, only when is established that a stateless person is a stateless person, ergo a stateless person under the aforementioned definition, that person can rely on the specific rights for stateless persons. As such, statelessness determination appears to be prerequisite for enjoyment of specific rights for stateless persons. I therefore decided I wanted to consider statelessness determination in my research. As the European Convention on Human Rights has been a legal document that inspired me throughout my studies, I decided to explore whether this instrument contains an (implicit) obligation for states to determine a person’s statelessness.

Could you briefly describe how you went about your research? E.g. did you base it on existing sources – and were they easy to find? Did you do fieldwork or interviews – and what was that like?

I based my research on case law of the European Court of Human Rights and tried to link existing cases to the issues that stateless persons encounter in their daily lives and which are related to the fact that their statelessness has not been determined/recognized. To be able to do this, I informed myself about the situations of stateless persons, for instance using the ‘Mapping Statelessness in …’-reports of UNHCR. Furthermore, I did not only use case law, but also commentaries on the Convention and the interpretation methods of the Court, as well as commentaries on specific cases. To this end, I conducted a literature and case law searches and studies. I found the more general commentaries on the interpretations of the Court to be particularly helpful, as these could point me to interesting lines of reasoning for my research and landmark cases.

What was the greatest challenge you had to deal with in undertaking your research?

The greatest challenge was probably to make a selection of case law and being creative in finding possibilities for linking the Court’s line of reasoning to stateless determination. The amount of case law is overwhelming and it was a challenge not to get lost therein. In this process, the focus of my research on statelessness determination helped me to zoom in on the proper cases.

Could you briefly summarise your main findings or conclusions – or what you think is the most important outcome of your research?

By analyzing the four articles of the Convention with the clearest links to statelessness determination, my research sheds light on whether this Convention obliges states to determine statelessness. First of all, the study shows that statelessness is an issue that is to be taken into account in considerations regarding any of these articles. However, the extent to which varies. For instance, under Articles 3 and 8 of the Convention, expulsion and removal are issues that trigger an obligation for statelessness determination in particular. In other circumstances, for example involving Article 13, it may be unlikely that the Court obliges a state to really determine statelessness, because the consequences of statelessness can be taken into account without putting a label of ‘statelessness’ on them. Yet, it is important to emphasize that the analysis demonstrates that statelessness can play a role in considerations involving each of the Articles. This evidences that statelessness, and therefore, the determination thereof, is an issue that states should concern all States Parties to the Convention in order to fulfil their obligations under – at least – Articles 3, 8, 13 and 14 thereof.

Have you found it rewarding to research statelessness – why / why not?

My research experiences during this project have been great. For me it was a perfect combination of doing truly legal research – studying case law of my favorite Court – and at the same time being able to use my own creativity – linking the interpretations of the Court to determination of a person’s statelessness – in order to contribute to the body of knowledge on the issue of statelessness and hopefully help stateless persons in claiming their rights in legal proceedings. What was particularly rewarding was that the European Network on Statelessness (ENS) took an interest in my research. Recently, ENS’s first discussion paper was published, which is based on my Master’s Thesis. It deals with possibilities for litigating for the obligation to determine statelessness under the European Convention on Human Rights. I am very grateful for this, as my research will now reach even more people working on the issue of statelessness, including persons who litigate on behalf of stateless persons.

What tips would you give to students who are getting involved in statelessness research to help them? E.g. are there particular questions you think they should be looking at or methodological issues they should consider?

When doing legal research like I did, I sometimes felt that I was working a bit far from practice – what stateless persons experience in their daily lives – and it made me wonder whether my research could truly contribute to a better life for them. I therefore think it is important to remember that statelessness is an issue that affects over 10 million people around the globe, and that all types of innovative and creative research, also legal research, are most welcome if we want to protect them and, in the end, eradicate statelessness.

UNHCR 2014 Statelessness Research Award interviews... Jason Tucker

"Statelessness challenged my preconceived notions about citizenship, which I naively assumed everyone had. Statelessness facilitated a new way to consider citizenship, the nation-state and global citizenship. However, as I learnt more and encountered the devastation that statelessness causes to people’s lives, what began as an intellectual challenge, quickly turned into an all consuming cause".

In this series of blog posts, we will be asking the students honoured in this year's UNHCR Award for Statelessness Research about their experiences studying the phenomenon on statelessness and their research findings. First in the series is Dr Jason Tucker, whose doctoral thesis entitled "Challenging the tyranny of citizenship: Statelessness in Lebanon", which earned him his PhD at the Department of Social and Political Sciences of the University of Bath (United Kingdom), was chosen by the Jury as the Best Research in the Doctoral Category.

Could you summarise, in 2 or 3 sentences, what your research was about?

Nation-states, are a relevantly new concept. They are fluid, arbitrarily conceived and being constantly contested. Similarly, citizenship, as a legal bond between and individual and a state, can be seen in the same light. Statelessness, it is argued in my research, is a consequence of the linking of these two much contested concepts. By viewing the nation-state, citizenship and global citizenship through the eyes of those trying to address statelessness, we gain a more nuanced understanding of them individually as well as their relationship.

What first got you interested in the problem of statelessness?

I was doing research on Sudanese refugees in Cairo in 2010. The women I was working with could not access their consulate, register the births of their children and didn’t even have refugee status. Later, on learning about the succession of South Sudan, I began to consider the impact this would have on these women. How would they claim/confirm their citizenship? Would it be in Sudan or South Sudan? Would they have a choice? And what would happen if they ended up with no citizenship at all?

At the time there was very little written about statelessness, and trying to grapple with the idea provided an irresistible intellectual challenge. It challenged my preconceived notions about citizenship, which I naively assumed everyone had. Statelessness facilitated a new way to consider citizenship, the nation-state and global citizenship. However, as I learnt more and encountered the devastation that statelessness causes to people’s lives, what began as an intellectual challenge, quickly turned into an all consuming cause.

Why did you choose this particular research topic?

Lebanon, with many stateless populations, provided a rich empirical setting to undertake my research. It also allowed me to include the stateless Palestinians, who at the time were peripheral in statelessness debates. I am glad to see that this is changing slightly as of late. Empirical richness was needed as the research was exploratory, and required contextual complexity and various large stateless groups with differing claims to compare. Further to this, while there was some information about statelessness in Lebanon, much more information was, and still is, needed. It is a vast problem in the country, a problem that is being insufficiently tackled.

Could you briefly describe how you went about your research? E.g. did you base it on existing sources – and were they easy to find? Did you do fieldwork or interviews – and what was that like?

Global citizenship was the main theoretical current in my research. So initially it was to the abundant literature on this that I turned. However, a theme soon emerged, one that I thought was in danger of weakening the foundations of the various global citizenship theories. People who act as global citizens were implicitly or explicitly assumed to have citizenship of a state/political community in both modern and more classical conceptualisations. The contemporary models see citizenship of a nation-state as a means to judge a person’s act of citizenship as one that is global, having an expanded moral obligation beyond their nation-state into the trans-national/global realm. The stateless had not been adequately considered, so 10 million people in the world could not act as global citizens under many of the dominant theories. If global citizenship excludes the stateless, how can it be global?

This, however, did not lead to my rejection of global citizenship, in which I place great value. A new approach was therefore needed to overcome these theoretical concerns. By considering global citizenship through the eyes of those addressing statelessness in Lebanon, some of whom are stateless, I was able to provide a new theoretical approach to assessing acts of global citizenship. I spent three months in Lebanon undertaking interviews, participant observation and engaging with the many stateless communities and key actors.

What was the greatest challenge you had to deal with in undertaking your research?

Initially it was the lack of existing literature on statelessness. However, this provided an opportunity as well as a challenge, as there was a gap that needed filling. The work available at the time could be divided into legal analysis, which often left out the human element, or work on the human element that often ignored the legal analysis, and as a consequence labelled many groups stateless, who actually were not.

This division was never more obvious than when presenting my research. When speaking to those in the social sciences they would often question why I had such a ridged legal definition of who is stateless. When speaking to lawyers they would wonder why I treated citizenship and the nation-state as such ambiguous and arbitrary terms. The middle ground, linking the human and the legal was a challenging and highly rewarding place to be. 

Could you briefly summarise your main findings or conclusions – or what you think is the most important outcome of your research?

The main findings on a theoretical level was a new means by which we can conceptualise global citizenship that includes the stateless. However, the more pragmatic findings were of greater interest to me. Statelessness highlights the weakness of the current ‘ownership’ of citizenship by nation-states.  This is a relatively modern link, and I shifted the burden of justification for discussing the concept of citizenship outside of the nation-state, on to those who assume this to be citizenship's natural place. In fact, citizenship does not have a natural place within the nation-state. Nation-states have laid claim to it and present the current system as if it was ahistorical. But the existence of statelessness highlights that this is by no means a natural place for citizenship to be. Nothing shows this more clearly than protracted cases of statelessness, where generation after generation languish outside of the nation-state system. Statelessness, is a consequence of this flawed relationship, and highlights the weaknesses of the current nation-state system. To strengthen itself, it is argued in the research, the nation-state system, individually and collectively, should look to end statelessness.

What tips would you give to students who are getting involved in statelessness research to help them? E.g. are there particular questions you think they should be looking at or methodological issues they should consider?

I would advise to look at it using an inter-disciplinary approach. It seems like a buzzword now, but I think there is enormous value in it for understanding statelessness. This is because it stems from a legal phenomenon, however its impacts are human and have a significant impact from the level of the individual, their family, their community, the countries they reside in and the international community. To tackle statelessness we need more research, a greater level of understanding of the causes and consequences, and this is most achievable if we embrace varied and diverse perspectives. 

GUEST POST: "A small step, perhaps, but a move in the right direction to help 600,000 people find somewhere to call home"

This is how CNN reported on the European Network on Statelessness (ENS) campaign to protect stateless persons in Europe after we handed over our online petition at an event in the European Parliament on Tuesday evening. Aside from pleasant surprise that CNN had picked up on our campaign, it struck me as a pretty good description of what we as a Network have managed to achieve over the last year since the launch of our campaign in October 2013.

You can never properly evaluate the impact of a campaign in its immediate aftermath but some positives conclusions can already be drawn about the campaign’s contribution to the fast accelerating emergence of statelessness as an issue finally attracting widespread international attention. It’s hugely encouraging that over 7,000 individuals from across Europe have made the effort to sign our online petition calling for:

1)      All European States to accede to the 1954 Statelessness Convention

2)      All European states to introduce a functioning statelessness determination procedure

It’s true that in the larger scheme of things, this signature count is not so high compared to some other online petitions (e.g. which relate to issues attracting mass media coverage or that are fuelled by organisations with weighty communications machinery which ENS could only dream about). So it’s actually accurate and in no way belittling for CNN to describe the campaign as “a small step, perhaps” but “a move in the right direction to help 600,000 people find somewhere to call home”. It’s certainly true that we need to take many more and much bigger strides if we are to truly address the situation of not only Europe’s 600,000 stateless but also the estimated 10 million persons across the globe who are afflicted by this man-made phenomenon.

But 7,000 signatures is undoubtedly an impressive figure when you consider that statelessness has for decades been a niche and largely forgotten issue. Factor in also that our campaign period has coincided with ENS transitioning into an independent charity (and all the work that this entails) and the limited resources at our disposal, we can be rightly proud of our efforts. So now is a good moment to say a massive thank you to all our members who supported the campaign as well as to those many other organisations outside our immediate Network (too many to mention here) who helped disseminate our petition.

And beyond shedding a much needed spotlight on the statelessness issue in a broader sense, there are already some encouraging signs of tangible impact through reforms announced in two of the countries which ENS prioritised in its campaign activities, namely Italy and the Netherlands. At an event organised in Rome by ENS member the Italian Refugee Council, the Italian government committed by the end of the year to table a draft law aimed at simplifying and improving the existing administrative procedure to recognise the status of statelessness. In the Netherlands, growing pressure from civil society organisations, UNHCR, the National Human Rights Institute, the Advisory Council on Migration Affairs and practicing lawyers led to the recognition by the competent ministry in September 2014 that a statelessness determination procedure is needed and the announcement that the ministry will work towards its establishment.  In other countries such as Ireland, Poland and Slovakia the campaign impact fell short of such firm commitments but observers described increased awareness having created a dialogue to progress reform in the coming years.

Tuesday’s event hosted by Jean Lambert MEP in the European Parliament was the culmination of the ENS campaign, and featured presentations by UNHCR Europe Bureau Director, Vincent Cochetel, and the award-winning photographer, Greg Constantine, who screened a photo essay on statelessness in the Netherlands (supported by ENS and the Tilburg Statelessness Programme). The petition was formally received by Cecilia Wickstrom MEP, Chair of the Parliament’s Petitions Committee, who made an impassioned acceptance speech which bodes well for future influence the Petitions Committee can hopefully  bring to bear on other EU institutions in terms of stepping up their engagement on statelessness. It was also encouraging to see the room packed with over 60 people, including approximately 10 MEPs who had taken time out of their busy schedules in order to attend the event. The end of the ENS campaign has also been (or will be) marked by national-level events organised by ENS members in Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Poland and Slovakia. The ENS campaign day of action was covered not only by CNN but also by Thomson Reuters.

Recognising that statelessness is often dismissed as an impenetrably technical and legal anomaly, an important aspect of our communications work has been to try to put a human face on the issue, including through the production of several short films by ENS or its members. A key element of this approach was the commissioning of a short animation Everyone has the right to a nationality which proved hugely successful in raising awareness about the plight of stateless migrants in Europe and in encouraging petition signatures. Just one illustration of this is that UNHCR’s Facebook post of the animated film attracted almost 500 likes in a day. The petition and animation were also featured in mailings by ECRE, ICVA, IDC, APRRN and the Forced Migration Current Awareness Blog to name but a few. And many ENS members placed the campaign prominently on their own websites and/or tweeted, posted or emailed the petition to their networks. These combined efforts saw the petition being mailed out to thousands of professional and personal contacts, and the animation has now been viewed over 5000 times on YouTube alone. ENS has also seen over 400 new likes of its Facebook page, and its mailing list has grown exponentially.

From the start the petition was presented and disseminated on social media along with first hand testimonies from stateless persons hosted on the ENS website. A feature on these snapshots of stateless people was published in English and French in Forced Migration Review with a link to the petition. Twenty shorter testimonies were also gathered through research by ENS members in 11 European countries and published in a new report Still Stateless, Still Suffering which was formally launched in the event in the European Parliament on Tuesday. While just a small snapshot of Europe’s total stateless population, these too long unheard voices speak powerfully to the human impact that statelessness has on people living in Europe, including destitution, long term immigration detention and being stuck in indefinite limbo unable to be removed but equally unable to belong or contribute to scoiety.

The campaign has garnered media coverage in several languages across many European countries. In the UK there have been articles in respected publications with broad readerships such as The Independent , Thomson Reuters and The Equal Times. The issue has been widely covered in the Slovak Republic, with two articles published in Slovak on major news websites; Hlavné Správy and actuálne.sk. In Belgium, various articles were published, including in the influential and popular Mo Magazine. The petition also benefitted from media coverage across the Netherlands, with Dutch articles featuring on the Nederlands Juristenblad, Tilburg.com and Wereldjournalisten.nl. The issue of statelessness was given radio coverage on 35 local stations and 2 national stations in Ireland via Newstalk, and two articles were published in thejournal.ie. It was also covered by Il Mondo in Italy. More recently, the Press Agency of the Slovak Republic picked up on the campaign in an interview with Katarina Fajnorová of the Human Rights League Slovakia. In Poland, the issue has been raised in articles published by both tvn24 and rp.pl. And many more besides.

But after taking a brief moment to pat ourselves on the back, now we move on. We must build on this increased awareness, not only in those countries (such as Italy and the Netherlands) where reform is now underway but also in the majority of European states which are yet to make any real movement towards introducing statelessness determination procedures. And despite some positive noises at a recent UNHCR roundtable in Warsaw, Poland (along with Estonia, Cyprus and Malta) is yet to even ratify the 1954 Statelessness Convention despite the EU having pledged in 2012 that all Member States would do so.

ENS has set up a working group of member organisations to take forward this work over the next two years and in support of our campaign call that all European states introduce a functioning statelessness determination procedure by the end of 2016. In this period we will also fast track a programme of work aimed at ending the arbitrary detention of stateless migrants. And in November we will launch our next campaign seeking to end childhood statelessness in Europe. We hope this will represent a valuable contribution to UNHCR’s ambitious ten year campaign to eradicate statelessness across the globe. Daunting though that objective is, hopefully the success with the ENS campaign puts a spring in our step as we work towards this.

Chris Nash, Director, European Network on Statelessness

[this blog originally appeared on the website of ENS here: http://www.statelessness.eu/blog/%E2%80%9C-small-step-perhaps-move-right-direction-help-600000-people-find-somewhere-call-home%E2%80%9D]