#ICCT » Feed ICCT » Comments Feed ICCT » UK Measures Rendering Terror Suspects Stateless: A Punishment More Primitive Than Torture Comments Feed alternate alternate -- Publications UK Measures Rendering Terror Suspects Stateless: A Punishment More Primitive Than Torture -- citizenship if they have been convicted of a terrorist offence, provided they also hold another nationality. Citizenship cannot be revoked if this would render an individual stateless”, amid discussions about whether these powers should be expanded. In Austria, France and Canada, there is currently debate about the need to amend the -- threat, but his or her very belonging to any state at all. The UK has removed a critical safeguard that protected people from being deprived of nationality if this would render them stateless. These political debates and policy changes around citizenship in the context of the fight against terrorism expose some worrying tensions in the relationship between people and states today. Human rights law recognises nationality as a fundamental right and statelessness is known to have a severely detrimental impact on the enjoyment of a wide range of other human rights. This is why the UN has adopted conventions dedicated to the prevention of statelessness and the protection of stateless persons. Nevertheless, governments still treat nationality as a privilege which a person must (continue to) earn. Moreover, at a time when the international community is devoting increasing attention to the fight against statelessness, states are allowing important safeguards against statelessness in their citizenship regimes to be eroded on grounds of “public interest”. -- the communist brigades against Franco), by actively identifying fighters and stripping them of their Dutch nationality. Many dozens were left stateless by this measure, although following the disbanding of foreign volunteer fighters after the war, the Netherlands nevertheless concluded an agreement which allowed them to return. Later, the Dutch government was ultimately also forced to deal with the “misery of statelessness” these former fighters endured through re-naturalisation policies adopted successively into the 1960s. During the same period, across the Atlantic, the United States also confronted -- which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment, and torture. Chief Justice Warren explained that to strip someone of their nationality and leave them stateless “is a form of punishment more primitive than torture, for it destroys for the individual the political existence that was centuries in the development. The punishment strips the -- some rights and, presumably, as long as he remained in this country, he would enjoy the limited rights of an alien, no country need do so, because he is stateless. Furthermore, his enjoyment of even the limited rights of an alien might be subject to termination at any time by reason of deportation. In short, the expatriate has lost the right to have rights”. History then, already cautions against the deliberate use of citizenship policy, or more particularly of statelessness, as a way to suppress or punish unwanted behaviour – be it where individuals are too keen to fight or not keen enough. Yet governments continue to reach -- nationality in the future, was not sufficient to satisfy the terms of the British Nationality Act which prohibited deprivation of nationality if this would result in statelessness. As a result, the government could not deprive Al-Jedda of his nationality. The Supreme Court issued its decision on 9 October 2013 and on 29 January 2014 the UK Government -- prejudicial to the vital interests of the United Kingdom, any of the Islands, or any British overseas territory, even if to do so would have the effect of making a person stateless” [emphasis added]. This would likely be interpreted to include “British fighters returning from Syria who are suspected of having fought alongside jihadists”, and goes -- On 17 March 2014, Lord Pannick noted, for instance: “It is a matter for considerable regret that the United Kingdom, which has played so significant a role in the battle to reduce statelessness, should now, if the Government have their way, condone the creation of statelessness, even for people who have damaged the public good. Such people should be put on trial, punished if there is evidence of criminal offences and deported if there is a safe country to which they -- organisation Liberty, stated that “removing the right to have rights is a new low. Washing our hands of potential terrorists is dangerously short-sighted and statelessness is a tool of despots not democrats.” Deeply concerned by their country’s new nonchalance towards statelessness, Pannick and other peers tabled an amendment, which was designed to scrutinise these expanded deprivation powers more closely. It passed 242 to 180. However, Theresa May then successfully convinced -- Home Secretary won the vote by 305 to 239 on 7 May 2014). Provision was made for an independent reviewer to examine how the powers work and the Home Secretary would only be able to “make an individual stateless if she has ‘reasonable grounds for believing’ they can acquire the citizenship of another country”. This wording is highly curious. On the one hand, it acknowledges that the UK has specific international obligations when it comes to the avoidance of statelessness as a consequence of deprivation of nationality – including under the 1961 UN Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness – and should therefore tread extremely carefully so as not to be in breach of these obligations. On the other hand, it fundamentally misinterprets those international obligations by suggesting that the obligation to prevent statelessness is not at issue where there are “reasonable grounds for believing” (vague terminology indeed) that the person can acquire the citizenship of another country (a newly fabricated proviso not found -- classes of citizens, a practice reminiscent of Nazi Germany or of Iraq led by Saddam Hussein. The stripping of British and thereby EU Citizenship to leave a person stateless may also raise issues under European Union law, as seen in the 2010 Rottmann ruling by the European Court of Justice. And finally, one can seriously wonder whether the -- Macdonald of River Glaven: “I remain of the view that the United Kingdom should not embrace a policy where one of its potential results is statelessness, associated with so many of the degenerate states of the 20th century, and where the outcome, if it is statelessness, is so hostile to human dignity in its most basic form. This is particularly so where that policy is also bound to strike against the international