It is on a Thursday evening, I have just come back from work. I have now settled down to read for my exams, which will be the next day on Friday, International Refugee law. Quite an exciting unit. I have learnt a lot in the unit from definition of what is a refugee, who is asylum seeker, the 1951 Refugee Convention, 1967 Refugee protocol on refugees, the history of refugees, and the French Protestants were among the first refugees in history… in the reading, there was a mention on a stateless person can also be a refugee. This drew my curiosity on the need to know the circumstances that leads to one being considered stateless?
I find it interesting that according to The Universal Declaration of Human Rights unequivocally states that “everyone has the right to a nationality” and that “no-one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality.” But to my surprise, there are thousands of people across the globe that lack the security and protection which citizenship can provide. To add more to it, there are individuals and communities who are deprived of their nationality by governmental decree and are subsequently expelled from the country which they consider to be their home. In other situations, stateless people are obliged to flee because of the persecution and discrimination which they experience. And having left the country where they have lived for most or all their lives, stateless people may subsequently find it impossible to return.
A “stateless person” is someone who is not considered as a national by any state under the operation of its law (article 1 of the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons). Here, nationality refers to the legal bond between a person and a state. This bond can best be seen as a form of official membership which confers upon the national certain rights (like the right to live in the country or participate in elections) as well as duties (like the duty of military service, where this is still in place). A person who is stateless lacks this membership and will be seen and treated as a foreigner by every country in the world. This phenomenon has also been described as “de jure statelessness”.
Nationality is almost always granted based on certain factual links between a person and a state: either links through family or through territory. To work out whether a person is stateless, it is usually sufficient to look at whether they have the nationality of any of the places with which they have such links, i.e. country of birth, country of nationality of parents, country of habitual residence and country of nationality of spouse.
Citizenship is a fundamental element of human security. As well as providing people with a sense of belonging and identity, it entitles the individual to the protection of the state and provides a legal basis for the exercise of many civil and political rights. I would call it the “right to have rights” People who lack a nationality may find it difficult or impossible to engage in a range of activities that citizens take for granted. If an individual is to enjoy the automatic right of residence in a country, carry a passport and benefit from diplomatic protection while abroad, then citizenship is indispensable. In many situations, nationality also enables people to find employment, to make use of public services, to participate in the political process and to have access to the judicial system.
An individual may lose his or her nationality and fail to acquire a new one as a result of an extended stay abroad or through marriage to (and subsequent divorce from) a person of a different nationality – a problem which affects a disproportionate number of women. Although it is the fundamental right of every child to acquire a nationality, children who are born to stateless parents or refugees – or who are born out of wedlock – may be denied citizenship.
Individuals may also find themselves stateless because of faulty administrative practices, the failure or refusal of a state to ensure the registration of births, or because of conflicts in the nationality laws of different countries, particularly when one adheres to the principle of ‘citizenship on the basis of descent’ and the other adheres to the principle of ‘citizenship on the basis of the place of birth.’ A person may voluntarily renounce their nationality and fail to acquire a new citizenship before that renunciation takes effect. In recent years it has also been known for asylum seekers to become or remain stateless by choice, so as to enhance their prospects for admission to one of the more prosperous countries.
Situations of statelessness involving larger numbers of people tend to arise in a number of different circumstances. Governments may amend their citizenship laws and denationalize whole sections of society in order to punish or marginalize them or to facilitate their exclusion from the state’s territory. The formation of new states, resulting from decolonization or the disintegration of a federal polity, may leave thousands or even millions of people stateless or with a disputed claim to citizenship. Large-scale statelessness may also arise in the context of mass expulsions and refugee movements, especially when the population concerned has lived in exile for many years without acquiring the citizenship of their asylum country. Statelessness is first and foremost a problem for states to resolve. In the refugee field, it has become an established principle that countries of origin have a primary duty to desist from actions that force people to abandon their homes and a corresponding obligation to create the conditions that will enable exiled populations to repatriate. A similar principle of state responsibility must be fostered in relation to the problem of statelessness. Above all, governments must acknowledge, both formally and in practice, that they do not have a right to withdraw or withhold the benefits of citizenship from whole sections of the population who can demonstrate a genuine and effective link with the country. Given the frequency with which governments have denaturalized and expelled their citizens, coupled with the protracted nature of so many citizenship disputes, an appeal to the notion of state responsibility might seem somewhat naive. It is therefore worth recalling that in the past few years a number of countries have managed to address the problem of statelessness in a positive manner.
In Lebanon, for example, more than 10,000 stateless persons, most of them from Middle Eastern minority groups (but not including the Palestinians) were granted citizenship in 1994-95. In the Baltic state of Lithuania, where the Russian population is relatively small, an inclusive approach to the nationality issue has given all permanent residents the opportunity to become citizens of the country. As a result, the issue has not become a matter of significant political controversy. And in early 1997, the Hong Kong authorities granted British passports to around 8,000 people, many of them of Indian origin, who were at risk of becoming stateless following the handover of the colony to China.
Despite the nationality issues which have arisen with the dissolution of Czechoslovakia, the two successor countries have largely succeeded in sorting out the affairs of the former state. What is more, this objective has been achieved in a very short period of time and in a peaceful manner – in striking contrast to the violence and mass population displacements which have accompanied the dissolution of other federal states.
Significantly, both the Czech and Slovak states have both welcomed international involvement in their nationality problems. This approach has enabled UNHCR, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the Council of Europe to assist in a number of ways: undertaking fact finding missions; commenting on new nationality legislation; training civil servants who are responsible for citizenship issues; and assisting individuals whose nationality status is unresolved.
But then again nationality has been used as a basis of discrimination against others. So, with that, said humanity might just have to reconsider their take on nationality. This might just give humanity hope for solving the endless nationality issues and discriminations. We can borrow from Socrates who once said, ‘I am a Citizen of the World. And my Nationality is Goodwill.”
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This is a very nice and educative article.
This is awesome
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Thank you dear
I appreciate.
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