the debate will india become the home of the largest number of stateless people? recent features -- the debate will india become the home of the largest number of stateless people? international pressure to ensure india fully respects the rights of all -- august 30, 2019 will india become the home of the largest number of stateless people? people whose names were left out in the national register of citizens -- population in assam, a state in northeastern india. the national register of citizens (nrc) process has put almost 4 million people, largely bengali muslims, at risk of being made stateless. the un high commissioner for refugees estimates that there are 10 million stateless people worldwide. with this one act, india risks becoming the home of the largest number of stateless people in the world. what led to the nrc? -- negative mental health have been reported. the nrc and potential statelessness the impending statelessness catastrophe in assam has been seen before. in the 1980s the bhutanese government stripped the lhotshampas, a nepali ethnic group, of their citizenship and forced them to leave the country. more recently, the rohingyas, a stateless and mostly muslim ethnic group residing in myanmar, fled to bangladesh after a wave of attacks. -- thousands of individuals in assam are already in detention camps after having their citizenship questioned. several new detention camps are being readied to house those expected to become stateless at the end of the month. already dealing with the rohingya crisis on one border, bangladesh has expressly stated that it will not accept those india -- actions. in 2017 the world was shocked at the brutality suffered by one million rohingyas who fled violence unleashed by the burmese military junta. a new statelessness crisis is looming in south asia, which could affect almost 4 million people. international pressure to ensure there is due process and clarity on what happens after the nrc deadline is -- * nrc * nrc india * stateless persons covid-19 #discover society latest posts discover society latest comments discover society » feed discover society » comments feed discover society » viewpoint: end statelessness or empower the stateless? comments feed alternate on the frontline: photographing stateless people in italy focus: a critical understanding of statelessness alternate alternate -- * contact viewpoint: end statelessness or empower the stateless? __________________________________________________________________ viewpoint: end statelessness or empower the stateless? * by discoversociety -- katja swider the biggest problem with contemporary policies on statelessness, including the unhcr’s campaign to end statelessness by 2024, is the incorrect assumption that nationality is by definition something good, and statelessness is by definition something bad. i argue that a value judgment about nationality or statelessness cannot be made without considering the specific circumstances of each affected individual. ending statelessness and the right to a nationality the policy goal to end statelessness implies that the best way to help the stateless is to end their statelessness. this decision is taken for all stateless persons by international policy makers. such a policy goal does not leave much space for affected individuals to choose whether, when and how to enforce their right to a nationality. in my chapter ‘why end statelessness?’ in the book ‘understanding statelessness’ i explore the relation between the idea of ending statelessness and the concept of human rights. i argue, for example, that the right to a nationality does not fully justify the policy goal to end statelessness. it is important to remember that access to rights is access to choices, and not the forceful imposition of something that has been externally identified as -- furthermore, the right to a nationality does not justify illegalising voluntary statelessness. voluntary statelessness is nowadays either prohibited, or highly discouraged. it is framed by international policy documents as an honest mistake at best, or a sneaky attempt to trick the system at worst.(1) by the way, voluntarily stateless persons, according to international policy documents, are not only those who refuse to be a national of any state out of ideological convictions, -- (political/personal/economic) reasons, even if they wouldn’t in principle mind acquiring another nationality if it was accessible to them. prohibiting voluntary statelessness in a policy that claims to be based on the right to a nationality is an illustration of how human rights discourse can be misleadingly invoked to justify patronising and oppressive policies. three stories that challenge the policy goal to end statelessness to illustrate the practical implications of my theoretical concerns, i discuss three cases and contexts in which the one-size-fits-all solution of ending statelessness negatively influences the human rights situation of affected persons. -- nationality may, depending on the relevant state, someone’s life circumstances, age and gender, be an excessive burden. a policy that aims to end statelessness for the sake of human rights should explicitly address scenarios where the acquisition of a nationality does not lead to a better human rights situation. another context is that of latvian non-citizens, a stateless population in latvia that is relatively well-protected, albeit lacking most political rights and some property rights compared to latvian nationals. the complex history of this stateless population is closely linked to latvia’s statehood, and challenges the policy goal to end statelessness in a number of interesting ways. for example, if non-citizens in latvia are not sufficiently motivated to seek latvian citizenship, one approach could be to worsen their conditions to provide more incentive to naturalise. lowering the level of protection of stateless persons may in this case expedite the goal to end statelessness, but would clearly contradict general human rights values. more generally, this case raises the question whether protection of stateless persons should have a limit, so that access to a nationality still holds a human-rights appeal. a human rights based policy should not support the situation where people -- the third context is that of the dutch system of registering the statelessness status. while the system has a legal category for stateless persons, it implicitly and explicitly discourages registration of cases of statelessness. civil servants are provided misleading instructions on statelessness. for example, government issued documents repeatedly state that statelessness hardly ever occurs in practice, and that state succession cannot lead to statelessness of those who previously possessed the nationality of a predecessor state. while such instructions clearly contradict available studies on the causes and scope of statelessness, they seem to be vaguely inspired by the legal discourse on avoiding and ending statelessness. that is not surprising, as the legal norms on eliminating statelessness are much better internalized in the dutch legal system than norms on the protection of stateless persons. this case illustrates that over-emphasis on avoiding statelessness can lead to policies that avoid acknowledging cases of statelessness. that may be highly problematic for the affected persons. being stateless in the netherlands is often a serious legal and bureaucratic challenge, but being stateless and not having that fact formally recognized creates a whole different level of vulnerability. eradication vs empowerment in other policy areas statelessness is not the only example where ‘eradication’ rhetoric that vaguely invokes human rights has the potential to turn against the very people it claims to help. studies on informal settlements (aka slums) -- persons. way forward for statelessness policies how can statelessness policies truly embrace the empowerment of those they aim to help? the answer lies in putting rights first. it is important to ensure everyone can enforce their right to full membership -- individuals’ choices as to whether, when and how invoke their human right to a nationality should be treated with respect. for statelessness policies this means that, contrary to current practices, the protection of stateless persons through rights needs to be prioritized over the goal to end statelessness. moreover, (temporary) voluntary statelessness needs to be accepted as a valid exercise of agency over one’s human right to a nationality. references: (1) see, for example, art. 7(1) of the 1961 un convention on the reduction of statelessness, and art. 8(1) of the council of europe convention on nationality. see also unhcr ‘handbook on protection of stateless persons’ (geneva 2014), paras. 21, 158-162. (2) huchzermeyer, m. ‘cities with ‘slums’: from informal settlement eradication to a right to the city in africa’ (uct press, 2011). -- katja swider is a doctoral researcher at the university of amsterdam, writing a phd thesis on statelessness under the supervision of prof. leonard besselink (university of amsterdam) and prof. rené de groot (university of maastricht), funded by the netherlands organisation for you are here: homenewstrendsfeatures stateless and super-rich as most people continue to batten down the financial hatches, an elite group of the world's "stateless super-rich" is blossoming, and transcending geographical boundaries to purchase properties in major cities across the globe -- as most people continue to batten down the financial hatches, an elite group of the world's "stateless super-rich" is blossoming, and transcending geographical boundaries to purchase properties in major cities across the globe. -- their roots are," he says. this increasingly global lifestyle has led to the stateless super-rich buying a larger portion of the world's most expensive homes as they look to park their wealth in perceived havens. on average they own four -- moved away." there is also a lack of integration between the incoming stateless super-rich and the communities into which they are buying. "some foreign nationals will come to london or new york because other wealthy -- tanya powley is the ft's mortgage and property reporter; lucy warwick-ching is the ft's online money editor tags: #features #stateless and super-rich first published: apr 28, 2012 01:30 pm -- lactating women at this time, says health ministry * stateless and super-rich stateless and super-rich * stateless and super-rich a leadership skill that i saw in a thief * stateless and super-rich the biggest lesson in acting is listening, says rejctx actor anisha... * stateless and super-rich 10 completely off-limits places on earth * español haiti: stateless people trapped in poverty victims of dominican republic’s arbitrary deportations -- descent now in haiti, including many children, whose nationality was taken away, have no clear, accessible path to establish their lawful claims to dominican citizenship, leaving many stateless in violation of their right to nationality. the haitian government, including the new administration following the november 20 elections, should address the problem and make clear the options for these stateless people to stay in haiti and get haitian citizenship and whether they can still protect their claims to dominican nationality, as well as the haitian government’s commitment -- before a judge. the haitian government, and the office of the un high commissioner for refugees (unhcr), which has a statelessness mandate as well as a refugee one, should establish a helpline or accessible information desks for people looking for assistance with their nationality. the -- led to unnecessary suffering and yet no effective steps are being taken to try and rectify the situation,” wheeler said. deportation and statelessness in 2013, a dominican court stripped tens of thousands of children of undocumented haitian workers in the dominican republic of their -- discriminatory and an “arbitrary deprivation of nationality” by the inter-american commission on human rights. unhcr expressed concern about the statelessness created by the decision. in 2014, the dominican government passed a law intended to ameliorate the impact of that decision by allowing those affected to secure their -- children that list the dominican republic as the place of birth. it’s not clear whether these children may face administrative hurdles later in life, or even statelessness, if they try to get a haitian national id when they reach 18. haitian law banned dual citizenship until 2012, when a law was passed to allow it. however, it is unclear whether -- children, including those who were born in the dominican republic before 2010, had to be smuggled over the border to join their mothers in haiti. they are now stateless or have instead acquired haitian birth certificates. access to reproductive health care in anse-à-pitres * vacancies and studentships the cost of statelessness posted monday 3 october 2011 brad blitz for governments seized with the importance of upholding human rights, the issue of statelessness raises a number of important concerns. denial or deprivation of nationality to certain groups of people may foster insecurity and fuel cross-border and inter-ethnic wars – for example in eastern congo. further, recent research has suggested that stateless groups are generally not prioritised in social assistance programs and are further disadvantaged as a result of aid policies which do not succeed in reaching them. -- working and the international legal framework. stateless people (photo credit: greg constantine) stateless people face innumerable barriers, and wider societal and political challenges are posed by their exclusion. obstacles include the denial of opportunities -- send children to school; access basic health services; purchase or own property; vote; hold elected office; and enjoy the protection of a country. too often the births, marriages, and deaths of stateless people are not certified and, many stateless people lack even basic documentation. data collection about refugees has improved but little research has been done on the livelihoods of stateless people. the lack of data on the livelihoods of stateless people is problematic because sound and effective policies require a strong evidential basis. furthermore, vulnerability does not end with the granting of citizenship. the links between statelessness, forced migration and humanitarian emergencies are well documented. pro-active and pre-emptive policies may prevent major emergencies. stateless people in south east asia and central africa have been the victims of persistent persecution; their exclusion from their home states (eg burma and democratic republic of -- emergencies. statelessness is sustained by poor governance, poverty, corruption, discrimination, and the lack of the rule of law, among other factors. in order to advance shared international development commitments, -- august 2011, i led a team of researchers on a project funded by the us department of state (£112,000) which aimed to provide empirical insight into the livelihoods of stateless people. the outcomes of this project will provide important evidence to help the us bureau of population, refugees and migration (prm), other governments, and the united nations high commissioner for refugees to protect stateless individuals and advance their social, economic, and personal well-being. the project sought to examine the gains made by a number of states (bangladesh, kenya, slovenia and sri lanka) and gather quantitative data on the livelihoods of stateless and formerly stateless people to illustrate the benefits that citizenship brings and to identify best practices. statelessness and its implications are politically sensitive subjects. conducting empirical research on the topic can therefore prove to be a very challenging experience in the field. to overcome this, the project -- explaining the impact of citizenship on livelihoods. even when citizenship reforms are introduced and discriminatory nationality laws amended, formerly stateless people endure continued hardships associated with the previous deprivation of nationality rights. -- case of the citizen group in bangladeshi and slovenian samples) than those who have more recently acquired citizenship. the results of this study show that statelessness lowers a household's per capita income by 33.7 per cent. b) in each country the impact of citizenship on income varied in terms of its intensity. in sri lanka and kenya, two poor countries, the percentage by which income was reduced for formerly stateless households (as compared against born citizens) was 11.5 per cent and 24.5 per cent respectively. in bangladesh and slovenia, two states where the former stateless groups have been actively excluded from mainstream society it was far greater at 74.5 per cent and 62.5 per cent respectively. (technical note: simple averaging of these country -- properties of average of ratios.) c) in terms of expenditure, stateless households spent 34 per cent less than citizen households. -- important in explaining the impact of citizenship on livelihoods. f) on average, stateless and formerly stateless people are 35 per cent less happy than citizens; education and health positively impact levels of happiness as does owning a house or land. g) statelessness reduces opportunities for education; the educational attainment of stateless and formerly stateless people is markedly lower than for citizens, in spite of the right to universal education. i. in bangladesh the mean education of stateless groups (grade 3) was approximately grade three to six years lower than that of the citizens (grade 9). ii. in kenya the mean education of stateless group (grade 7) was approximately three years is lower than that of the citizens (grade 10). -- was approximately two years lower than that of the citizens (grade 12). iv. in sri lanka, for the formerly stateless group educational attainment was approximately grade 6, one year lower than that of the citizens (grade 7). -- attainment strengthens livelihood outcomes. i) statelessness reduces health expectancy. with respect to livelihood assets: a) the odds of having good access to land are lower for stateless and former stateless households. in slovenia and bangladesh, there was less than ten per cent chance of having access to land, just 8.5 per cent and 5.4 per cent respectively. in kenya, the odds of accessing land are especially low, at just 0.65 per cent. b) statelessness reduces owning a house by 59.7 per cent. c) the odds of having social capital vary according to the country of -- cent. d) though statelessness has no direct effect on the odds of acquiring social capital, poorer households in each country had reduced access. -- citizens go on a better trajectory than the non-citizens. b) stateless groups are more likely to be affected by seasonal change, which restricts opportunities for work, access to food, and shelter. -- with respect to livelihood strategies: a) citizens are able to access more paid work than formerly stateless persons. b) in kenya and sri lanka this difference extends to gender, with both citizen and formerly stateless men doing more paid work than citizen and formerly stateless women respectively. within this context more men citizens are professionals and more formerly stateless are casual workers. -- enforcement bodies, some did. g) seasonal change is a matter of concern for stateless people in some countries. -- refugees walking (photo credit: greg constantine) further research is required on the long-term effects of statelessness on people's lives, the realisation of their rights and capacities for economic and social development, and political participation. this research should focus on -- professor brad blitz has an international reputation for his work on the challenges of post-conflict integration, statelessness, and the return of refugees. he has been called upon to advise several un agencies including unicef and undp. opinions|refugees being stateless in america “i’m not from here, i’m not from there; i don’t belong anywhere.” -- passport is this?” “it’s a travel document for a stateless,” i replied. opinion: i listen to refugees and i hear my own story -- more from author this is what it is like to travel as a stateless person rows of united airlines check-in counters at o'hare international #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 rami abusaleh (31) arrived in the netherlands as a refugee in 2014, stateless and alone. he has since got married, become a dutch national, and is beginning to heal from the trauma of living with conflict and oppression in his home country of syria. a master’s student in -- how long do you plan to stay? as long as i can. i was once stateless. now i’m dutch and i’m happy here. i have a family. i met a girl here and we are married now and i have a good life here and i hope that i find my way. * help what are the uk immigration rules on statelessness... join / login (search) ____________________ -- eu settlement scheme course now available free to members what are the uk immigration rules on statelessness? 27th march 2019 by nath gbikpi favorite loading add to favorites hubs / asylum / what are the uk immigration ru ... what are the uk immigration rules on statelessness? page contents * who is stateless? + state + under operation of the law -- people who do not have citizenship of any country in the world — the “stateless” — can get leave to remain in the uk because they have nowhere else to go. the criteria for this leave are found at part 14 of the immigration rules. the home office also has guidance on statelessness and applications for leave to remain. in addition, practitioners should refer to the 1954 convention relating to the status of stateless persons, and the unhcr handbook on protection of stateless persons. the home office guidance states that, when there are differences between the handbook and the guidance, the guidance will take precedence. -- the guidance is likely to be updated soon to reflect changes in the immigration rules due to come into force on 6 april 2019. this post looks at statelessness in light of the amended immigration rules. who is stateless? paragraph 401 of the immigration rules adopts the definition of the 1954 convention. a stateless person is defined as a “person who is not considered as a national by any state under the operation of its law”. -- kosovo is not recognised as a state by spain, but it is recognised as a state by the uk. therefore, a national of kosovo, who is recognised as a citizen by kosovo, will not be considered stateless by the uk. venezuela is currently facing such an economic crisis that many venezuelan nationals have been unable to get passports, because of a shortage of papers. venezuela does, however, continue to be considered a state. a venezuelan national will not be considered stateless, even if they cannot obtain a passport confirming their nationality. -- even if someone seems to be a citizen under the law of a particular state, they may still be considered stateless if they are not treated as a citizen in practice. the home office recognises that: -- in summary, for someone to be granted leave on the basis of statelessness, they must: * not be “excluded” from recognition as a stateless person * meet the definition of statelessness * make a valid application * not be admissible to another country -- 1. meeting the definition the first requirement to be granted leave on the basis of statelessness is to meet the definition in the previous section: not being considered a citizen by any country in the world. -- paragraph 402 of the immigration rules set out the reasons why a person may be excluded from recognition as a stateless person. click for full text of paragraph 402 402. a person is excluded from recognition as a stateless person if there are serious reasons for considering that they: -- the united nations. in summary, a person will not be recognised as stateless where 1. they have alternative protection, i.e. they are assisted by unrwa or the country where they used to live is giving them legal rights -- paragraph 403 (d) of the rules states that an applicant must have “obtained and submitted all reasonably available evidence to enable the secretary of state to determine whether they are stateless”. according to the home office, therefore, the burden of proof rests with the applicant to show that they are stateless, although the home office guidance states that some allowances will be made: -- arguably, the home office is wrong in stating that the burden of proof rests with the applicant to show that they are stateless. in the case of hoti v croatia, the european court of human rights criticised croatia for not proactively determining the applicant to be stateless, indicating that it is indeed a shared burden. the standard of proof is the “balance of probabilities”. that is, an applicant must show that it is more likely than not that they are stateless. the home office guidance provides a non-exhaustive list of evidence -- grounds for refusal include having made false representations or submitted false information; failure to attend an interview when requested (this is particularly relevant for statelessness applications as applicants can be called for interviews); and litigation and nhs debts. -- applicants applying after 6 april 2019 will need to show not only that they are stateless and not admissible to any other country, but that they have made every effort to acquire a nationality or right of admissibility to another country. in particular, they will need to show -- this is strikingly different from the position in nationality law, where a child is entitled to register as a british citizen after five years’ residence in the uk on the basis that they are stateless, independently of whether or not they could register to become a national of another country. -- other considerations when making an application statelessness applications are complex and should be well-prepared and evidenced. wherever possible, applicants should seek legal advice. cynthia orchard of asylum aid has written an excellent piece on -- file. this is because it might contain useful information (for example if the home office already made a finding that the applicant is stateless) but may also contain damaging information which must be explained (for example if the applicant previously said that they were a citizen of country x). similarly to asylum claims, the home office -- under current rules applicants are eligible for indefinite leave to remain after five years’ continuous lawful residence in the uk, where the latest leave is as a stateless person (but the whole five years do not necessarily need to be with leave as a stateless person, just the most recent leave). the changes to the rules however mean that, from 6 april 2019, applications will need to have had stateless leave for five years before being eligible for indefinite leave to remain. example -- doria had leave as the spouse of a british citizen valid from 2 march 2013 to 2 september 2015. on 15 august 2015, she applied for leave on the basis of statelessness, which was granted from 15 august 2016 to 15 february 2019. under current rules, doria could apply for indefinite leave to remain on 2 march 2018, on the five-year anniversary of her lawful residence in the uk, even though she was only granted leave on the basis of statelessness in august 2016. under the new rules, however, doria would need to wait until she has lived in the uk for five years with statlessness leave, that is until -- in line with the main applicant. family members can also apply for family reunion from abroad. this is not a recognition that they are themselves stateless, and it may be that some family members would benefit from making their own application on the basis of statelessness. this post has been revised and updated following helpful comments by cynthia orchard. we also recommend reading the best practice guide on statelessness applications produced by the university of liverpool law clinic, which is in the process of being updated. nath gbikpi -- centre. she is also a co-convenor of the ilpa family and personal migration working group and a trustee of jcwi. she tweets: @nathgbikpi. tags: applications, immigration rules, key post, statelessness share -- explore membership now share tagsapplicationsimmigration ruleskey poststatelessness find similar resources & articles in hub talk of establishing a strong and modern state is like saying that congo, afghanistan, haiti or sierra leone in their current condition of statelessness can send an astronaut to the moon. i hold no grudge against these countries but in the real world in which we live these countries are bitter expressions of statelessness — something that we in pakistan don’t wish for ourselves. yet politics in this country never stops to invest in our statelessness. why? even if there was a central authority to prevent statelessness from happening our enemies are making sure that even this authority is made controversial and in a politically created, free-for-all environment this article is more than 5 years old stateless in europe: 'we are no people with no nation' this article is more than 5 years old -- experts are warning that children such as siba could turn into a stateless generation. though the infant was born in berlin after her mother arrived from damascus, there is no automatic german citizenship. and under syrian law, a child can only inherit nationality from its father. as a single mother, sanaa was well aware that siba would be stateless. “there is no paper for siba in syria. because it’s the law, you don’t -- although international treaties oblige states to ensure every child’s right to a nationality, european governments are failing to do so, or even to recognise that children are being born stateless at all. the un released a report this month calling for global action on child statelessness. “in the short time that children get to be children, statelessness can set in stone grave problems that will haunt them throughout their childhoods and sentence them to a life of discrimination, frustration and despair,” said the un high commissioner -- at least 10 million people globally do not have citizenship of any country, according to the un. without nationality, stateless people cannot vote and can find it difficult or impossible to gain access to healthcare, education and employment. the un estimates that there are 680,000 stateless people in europe, though experts say the figure is likely to be much higher. there are hundreds of thousands of russian-speaking minorities in latvia and estonia who became “non-citizens” following the fall of the soviet union. there are thousands of roma in italy and the balkans left stateless in large part due to the breakup of yugoslavia. the experiences of these long-term stateless people highlight the dismal fate that awaits syrian children if their legal nationality is not resolved. -- beyond rome’s frenzied centre, the quiet outer suburb of monte mario is home to a “nomad camp” where many of the residents are stateless. there is an uneasy calm after the police shut down the camp’s weekly flea market. it’s a regular flashpoint in tense relations between roma -- will no longer do business with roma people. as for many stateless people around the world, the problem for the roma is both a legal failing and one of entrenched discrimination. “anti-roma racism is a really powerful force in europe,” says adam -- them as members of national communities.” being stateless and undocumented also reinforces this exclusion. lacking a proper education or the right to work forces many to look for employment outside the law, in turn fuelling accusations that the roma are a criminal minority who refuse to integrate. refugee crisis creates 'stateless generation' of children in limbo read more and the situation is not limited to italy. exclusion from bureaucratic processes means there are still large numbers of roma at risk of statelessness in the ex-yugoslav states, as well as in ukraine and bulgaria. * * * the 1954 un convention relating to the status of stateless persons was drawn up in the aftermath of the second world war when statelessness in europe was rife. most eu countries have ratified the convention, obliging them to offer the stateless basic rights and protection in much the same way as refugees. but while refugee rights are recognised internationally, with asylum procedures to determine who is entitled to such protection, only a handful of european countries have formal procedures to recognise the stateless. michel*, 35, was one of the first people to benefit from the uk’s statelessness determination procedure after it was introduced in 2013. an orphan, he was brought up in a madrasa – an islamic religious school – in ivory coast. his earliest memories are of begging on the street. -- in the living room of his terraced house with views of the yorkshire moors, he explains that he did not know he was stateless until researching ways to prevent his deportation following the failure of his asylum claim. with no knowledge of where he was born, or who his parents were, michel realised he had no legal claim to ivorian nationality. a uk stateless travel document. a uk stateless travel document. photograph: handout michel’s first application to be recognised as stateless was rejected. after the liverpool law clinic (llc) stepped in to challenge the decision, he got his first id – a stateless travel document – in 2014, 15 years after first arriving in the uk. “my life has changed dramatically,” he says. “before i got my papers, all my thinking was -- woodhouse, from the llc, says that as of spring this year, only about 20 of the approximately 700 people who had attempted the procedure since it was introduced had been recognised as stateless. rather than simply determining that a person is stateless and therefore has a right to protection, the procedure aims to identify any possible country to which the undocumented might be deported. “it’s not really a procedure for helping people who are stateless,” says pierre makhlouf, a lawyer with bail for immigration detainees. “it’s actually a procedure to identify those who cannot be removed. the -- establish that you won’t be accepted by another country.” gábor gyulai, an expert on statelessness with the hungarian helsinki committee and president of the european network on statelessness steering committee, says this additional criterion violates the 1954 statelessness convention. nonetheless, the uk’s acknowledgment of statelessness represented real progress. “certainly the uk procedure was a very important step,” says gyulai. “i remember a few years ago there seemed to be very little appetite to introduce such a procedure.” yet recognition of statelessness remains fraught with contradictions that are often kafkaesque. with very few exceptions, statelessness determination procedures put the burden of proof on applicants, who must show that they are not citizens of any country to which they have habitual or family ties. but few embassies will issue documents confirming that someone is not a citizen. the uk government even lists “current passport” among the documents sought to bolster a stateless application. and many such procedures are only open to people who are already legally resident – even though statelessness itself can be a barrier to residency. a roma woman walks with her children in a camp in rome. -- authorities. photograph: max rossi/reuters italy has one of europe’s oldest statelessness determination procedures. but nando sigona, a sociologist at birmingham university who has studied statelessness among italy’s roma for many years, says he has not heard of a single roma person being recognised through the country’s official administrative route. “it seems as if in the way the bureaucratic process has been designed they have some idea of the deserving stateless, and those like the roma don’t fit in and as a result cannot apply – the abject stateless,” sigona says. humica has been formally recognised as stateless by the italian authorities but only managed this through a complex and expensive judicial procedure. since she got her papers four years ago, she has -- camp. have you ever seen a gypsy working alongside italians?” for humica, the biggest advantage of being recognised as stateless is that she no longer fears the immigration authorities. like many undocumented roma, she has spent time in immigration detention. -- working illegally again, he fills his time volunteering as a cook and support worker for destitute refugees. his only hope is to prove that he is stateless. * * * latvia also has a statelessness determination procedure. but the country denies that its almost 260,000 non-citizens are stateless. when latvia became independent in 1990, only those who could trace their family’s presence on the territory to before soviet occupation in 1940 -- emigrated, or gained latvian nationality since the government lifted age restrictions on who could be naturalised in the 1990s. but approximately 12% of the latvian population remain stateless. although they now have most of the rights of latvian citizens, they cannot vote and are barred from working in the civil service and some other -- and it’s not just latvian non-citizens who would rather remain stateless than conform to an identity imposed on them by the state. antun blazevic is a stateless roma actor, playwright and poet who also goes by the stage name of toni zingaro – zingaro being the italian slang for roma, equivalent to “gypsy” and generally regarded as a -- sergei kruks sergei kruks, who was born to russian parents, is among the 12% of the latvian population who are stateless. photograph: handout the western world doesn’t want to integrate people … they want -- blazevic – who was once arrested for occupying the colosseum in rome in protest at the death of a tunisian refugee in italian immigration detention – enjoys his statelessness as identifying him as everything and nothing. he has no plans to apply for italian citizenship, rejecting the very idea of the nation state that defines who is worthy -- in a few years, sanaa plans to apply for german nationality, which siba would benefit from too. but she will have to meet various criteria, including being able to support her family financially. stateless campaigners argue that siba’s citizenship should be automatic and her mother should not have to tread carefully to ensure this right. -- as the latest un report says, there are “straightforward legal and practical measures” that governments should put in place to prevent statelessness and “ensure that children’s very real connections to their countries are recognised through the grant of nationality”. compared with the legal complexity of recognising and granting rights to stateless adults, protecting children from being born stateless in europe should be a relatively achievable goal. while some countries have not ratified international treaties to protect the stateless, all eu member states have acceded to the un convention on the rights of the child, which obliges countries to grant nationality to children who would otherwise be born stateless. most countries go some way to enshrining these rights in domestic law. but conditions are often attached that are not in line with international treaties – meaning stateless children are only entitled to citizenship if, for example, their parents are legally resident in their country of birth. and in practice, the law is not often implemented. italy’s citizenship law automatically grants citizenship to stateless children born on its soil, but insists on at least one parent being formally recognised as stateless before the child’s birth. this ignores children who cannot inherit their parents’ nationality, and the many stateless roma parents who are completely undocumented. but while roma statelessness is deeply entwined with discrimination, europe is currently experiencing a rush of goodwill towards syrian refugees – and children in particular – which could inspire the kind of action on statelessness that has not been forthcoming for the roma or russian speakers of the baltics. -- is still a high level of solidarity throughout europe,” says gyulai. “these children are already extremely vulnerable and if they become stateless it will make their situation much worse – especially if there is no mechanism to officially perceive this statelessness and the rights attached to it. this is a test for the mechanisms to prevent statelessness and it’s a good opportunity for states to look at their practice and legislation.” while studies have shown that the risk of statelessness among the children of syrian refugees is widespread in turkey and lebanon, there has been no research into the scale of the problem in europe. moreover, the fact that children such as siba are currently in the asylum system means that their parents will often not realise that they are stateless. but this largely invisible issue could have long-term consequences for them. acting now to prevent these children of syrian refugees growing up stateless could head off the problems experienced by other stateless people in europe. an absence of paperwork might have seemed a minor problem in the midst of the geopolitical upheavals of two decades ago, but it has become a barrier to integration that is harder and harder to solve. meeting the immediate needs of refugees is one thing, but if governments fail to recognise the long-term impacts of statelessness, a new generation could grow up in limbo. * the stateless in the united states john corgan -- * [ ] resettlement * [ ] security * [ ] stateless * [ ] trafficking / smuggling * [ ] women -- view more in 'cms news' the stateless in the united states the proposed border security, economic opportunity, and immigration modernization act (s. 744) includes provisions to regularize the status of stateless persons within the united states (s. 744, sec. 3405). these provisions follow a recent report from the un high commissioner for refugees (unhcr) and the open society justice initiative highlighting the precarious legal and socioeconomic status of stateless persons living within the united states. the report emphasizes that the united states lacks a consistent legal framework for dealing with stateless individuals, leaving many in protracted deportation proceedings and exposing many more to exploitation by employers, landlords and law enforcement officials (unhcr and open society justice initiative 2012). the stateless have no formally recognized nationality or citizenship. as a consequence, they cannot avail themselves of the legal and diplomatic protections of any country. they exist, in a sense, outside the formal realm of the nation-state. for this reason, unhcr—the international agency tasked with combatting statelessness—has referred to stateless persons as “legal ghosts” (unhcr 2011, 2). individuals can become stateless either by law (de jure) or by circumstance (de facto). one of the largest stateless groups in the world is the rohingya of myanmar. that nation’s laws do not count the mostly-muslim rohingya among the ethnicities eligible for citizenship and the rohingya are therefore de jure stateless (green and pierce 2009, 34). de facto statelessness can occur in a number of ways. the country in which an individual was born—such as yugoslavia—may cease to exist and a former citizen may not meet the citizenship or nationality requirements set by the successor state(s). de facto statelessness may also arise when an individual is unable to offer sufficient documentary evidence of his or her nationality. this is the primary concern with -- 2012). reliable data on the number of stateless persons in the united states is lacking. unhcr notes that there are at least several hundred, but the real number could be far higher (unhcr 2012). representative lamar -- representatives committee on the judiciary 2011). with no legal status in the united states and no country willing to grant them legal status, such people could be considered de facto stateless (price 2012, 26). mikhail sebastian is arguably the most famous stateless person in the united states. born in the former soviet union, sebastian sought asylum in the united states in the early 1990s, but was denied. the united states could not deport him because armenia—the successor state in whose territory sebastian was born—did not recognize his citizenship, leaving him stateless. after a four-day new year’s vacation to american samoa in 2012, sebastian was barred from reentering the mainland united states by immigration officials, who claimed he had self-deported. it -- tumblr, youtube and cnn ireport.[1] the 1954 convention on the status of stateless persons and the 1961 convention on the reduction of statelessness oblige signatory states to treat stateless persons the same as other resident aliens, particularly with regard to work authorization and the issuance of identity and travel documents. they also require states to confer nationality upon individuals born in their territory who would otherwise be stateless at birth and prohibit states from allowing citizens to renounce their nationality if doing so would render them stateless. because this last prohibition conflicts with the us legal tradition of voluntary renunciation of citizenship, the united states has not become a signatory of either convention, though us state department officials have asserted that this fact “does not in any respect undermine [the united states’] commitment” to combating statelessness (green and pierce 2012, 35). indeed, the united states does have legal protections in place to reduce the chance of its citizens and residents being rendered stateless. most notably, the principle of jus soli, enshrined in the fourteenth amendment, ensures that any child born in us territory is automatically a us citizen, even if the child’s parents are stateless. us law also recognizes the principle of jus sanguinis, ensuring that—with some exceptions—children born abroad to us citizens are also -- despite these protections, the united states nevertheless has a history of fostering statelessness. the 1857 dred scott decision, for example, denied that africans and their descendants even had the capacity to take on a nationality, condemning them, in the words of linda kerber, to “permanent statelessness” (kerber 2005, 733). in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the government routinely stripped women of their us citizenship if they married foreign husbands (kerber 2005, 735). -- recognize their foreign-born children as citizens (8 u.s.c. sec. 1409) and because some countries do not recognize citizenship descent through the mother, such rules could easily render certain children stateless at birth if their fathers fail to meet the ina’s requirements (kerber 2005, 738-740). because the united states lacks a consistent legal framework for recognizing stateless persons and addressing their specific political and economic needs, stateless persons in deportation proceedings are typically treated the same as other non-us citizens, even though stateless persons have no country to which they can be deported. these deportation proceedings can lead to long periods of detention, though under two recent supreme court rulings—zadvydas v. davis in 2001 and clark v. martinez in 2005—stateless persons can no longer be held in detention indefinitely. as a result of these cases, after six months of detention, the burden shifts to the us government to prove that the removal of a non-citizen in deportation proceedings is possible in the reasonably foreseeable future (kerwin and yin 2009). this standard prevents stateless persons and other detainees from becoming “lifers”—that is, non-us citizens held indefinitely in detention facilities awaiting the unlikely or impossible prospect of deportation (kerwin 1998, 650; kerwin and lin 2009). stateless persons in removal proceedings are typically detained for ninety days, during which time a country of removal is assigned to them—even if there is no reasonable expectation that deportation will -- to prove futile (unhcr 2012, 20-21, 26). nonetheless, an order of supervision usually allows a stateless person to work legally in the united states, albeit after completing a yearly application and paying annual processing fees. in that respect, stateless individuals under orders of supervision are more fortunate than those without them. once a stateless person’s deportation case is dropped, he or she loses work authorization. he or she may remain in the united states, but lacks any formal legal status and has no right to work. the same situation applies to stateless individuals who have yet to come in contact with immigration officials—without legal status, they cannot be legally employed (unhcr 2012, 26-27). in recent years, government agencies and officials have taken some preliminary steps to address the issue of statelessness. the state department now includes statelessness as a subsection in its annual “country reports on human rights practices” and us diplomats have encouraged countries like vietnam to naturalize their resident stateless populations (green and price 2009, 34). the department has also utilized its official blog to draw attention to the plight of stateless persons around the world.[2] elected officials have recently shown interest in addressing statelessness as well. senator patrick leahy (d-vt) and three other senators co-sponsored the refugee protection act of 2013 (s. 645), which—among other reforms—would provide a pathway for de jure stateless persons to obtain lawful status in the united states (s. 645, sec. 17). the proposed border security, economic opportunity, and immigration modernization act (s. 744) closely mimics the provisions called for by the refugee protection act in relation to stateless persons, empowering the attorney general or the secretary of homeland security to provide conditional lawful status to stateless persons. this status would allow stateless persons to work in the united states and they could adjust to lawful permanent residence and later to citizenship (s. 744, sec. 3405). the lack of a viable legislative framework for dealing with statelessness sets the united states apart from other developed nations. spain and france, for example, issue residency permits to those deemed stateless (unhcr and asylum aid 2011, 69), while sweden—though not explicitly acknowledging statelessness—grants special status to foreigners in need of protection who are unable to return to their home country (kohn 2012). these measures are grounded in the 1954 and 1961 conventions against statelessness, as well as in the universal declaration of human rights, which declares that all individuals have the right to a nationality (udhr, article 15). -- open society justice initiative emphasize in their report, regularization of status is therefore crucial if the situation of stateless persons in the united states is to improve. with comprehensive immigration reform on the national agenda, the time may be ripe for the united states to address the status of stateless persons within its territory. __________________________________________________________________ -- http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/doc-748933. [2] http://blogs.state.gov/index.php/site/entry/statelessness/. -- blitz, brad k., and caroline sawyer. 2011. “analysis: the practical and legal realities of statelessness in the european union.” in statelessness in the european union: displaced, undocumented, unwanted, edited by caroline sawyer and brad k. blitz, 281-305. london: cambridge university press. -- http://judiciary.house.gov/news/05232011.html. green, nicole, and todd pierce. 2009. “combatting statelessness: a government perspective.” forced migration review 32: 34-35. kerber, linda k. 2005. “toward a history of statelessness in america.” american quarterly 57(3): 727-49. -- ions/detentionreportsept1009.pdf. kohn, sebastian. 2012. “statelessness in sweden – changes ahead?” european network on statelessness. www.statelessness.eu/blog/statelessness-sweden-changes-ahead. price, polly j. 2012. “stateless in the united states: current reality and a future prediction.” vanderbilt journal of transnational law, forthcoming; emory legal studies research paper no. 12-229. -- unhcr (un high commissioner for refugees). 2011. helping the world’s stateless people. geneva, switzerland: unhcr. https://www.refworld.org/docid/4e55e7dd2.html. unhcr and asylum aid. 2011. mapping statelessness in the united kingdom. london: unhcr. accessed 21 may 2013. http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/4ecb6a192.html. unhcr and open society justice initiative. 2012. citizens of nowhere: solutions for the stateless in the u.s. new york and washington, dc: open society justice initiative and unhcr. http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/50c620f62.html. -- publications statelessness in the united states: a study to estimate and profile the us stateless population statelessness in the united states: a study to estimate and profile the us stateless population date of publication: january 23, 2020 authors: -- donald kerwin, daniela alulema, michael nicholson, and robert warren statelessness in the united states: a study to estimate and profile the us stateless population this report describes a unique methodology to produce estimates and set forth the characteristics of us residents who are potentially stateless or potentially at risk of statelessness. it also lifts up the voices and challenges of stateless persons, and outlines steps to reduce statelessness and to safeguard the rights of stateless persons in the united states. as part of the study, cms developed extensive, well-documented profiles of non-us citizen residents who are potentially stateless or potentially at risk of statelessness. it then used these profiles to query american community survey data in order to develop provisional estimates and determine the characteristics of these populations. -- cms news policy analysis posts issues: stateless regions: americas north america united states report citizens of nowhere: solutions for the stateless in the u.s. facebook twitter linkedin first page of pdf with filename: citizens-of-nowhere-solutions-for-the-stateless-in-the-us-20121213.pdf citizens of nowhere: solutions for the stateless in the u.s. download the 50-page report. 1.17 mb, pdf download date -- related work stateless persons are individuals who are without the recognition or protection of any country. without the protection of citizenship or nationality, stateless individuals are highly vulnerable to discrimination and abuse, and are often denied essential human rights by the state in which they live. the office of the u.n. high commissioner for refugees (unhcr) estimates that there are 12 million stateless persons globally, of which 3.5 million are in countries for which there are reliable statistics counting stateless individuals. an undetermined number of these individuals live in the united states—many without any lawful status, access to rights or protections. this report focuses primarily on the especially vulnerable population of stateless individuals residing in the united states who have no path to acquire lawful status or become naturalized u.s. citizens under the current law. the report provides an overview of statelessness in the global context, including its causes and often grave consequences to those individuals who are stateless, the international legal framework, and the role of unhcr. the report then discusses some of the key issues faced by this group of stateless individuals in the u.s. and concludes with recommendations of measures for the u.s. government to take to ensure that these individuals receive the rights and responsibilities asia why does asia have millions of stateless people? millions of people in asia are not citizens of any country, and they live without legal rights or protection. although modern conflicts shape the problem, statelessness is rooted in asia's colonial past. rohingya refugees at a camp in cox's bazar, bangladesh -- universities and research institutions: "it is very likely that the nrc process will cause great and long-lasting suffering associated with statelessness." read more: india citizenship lists: nearly 2 million face statelessness watch video 02:16 -- the rohingya are considered to be one of the most persecuted minority groups in the world, and they are de facto stateless. experts and the un agree that statelessness exacerbates their precarious situation. since 2017, the rohingya have been violently forced from their homes in -- cleansing." the situation of the rohingya and the threatened statelessness of almost 2 million people in assam are a consequence of the eventful history of asia in the 21st century and the restrictive civil rights in -- read more: rohingya people in myanmar: what you need to know the roots of statelessness before the arrival of european colonialists, the idea of a nation state -- states. read more: rohingya crisis demonstrates consequences of statelessness between 1945 and 1950, the new states had to adopt new citizenship laws -- secondly, none of the countries in question offers simplified naturalization. this means that refugees and stateless persons have no chance of changing their status for generations. -- or these were lost as people fled. the poor and landless often find themselves stateless as land ownership remains the best way of proving this very practical dimension is discussed far too little in india and myanmar. -- the current political climate in asia also contributes to millions of stateless people. still, india, bangladesh and myanmar have not signed any of the three un conventions on the protection of refugees or stateless persons. watch video 02:24 -- * author rodion ebbighausen * related subjects asia, rohingya, migration, refugees * keywords asia, statelessness, rohingya, migration, refugees * send us your feedback. * print print this page * about statelessness: what hannah arendt can still teach us by -- max regus once stateless herself, arendt still informs our discussions today. border crossings hannah arendt graffiti - arendt was once stateless the mantle -- part of our discussion of refugees stems from hannah arendt’s concept of statelessness. a current analysis of this concept comes from jeremy adelman’s article titled pariah: can hannah arendt help us rethink our global refugee crisis? his article highlights that we are now experiencing the highest number of refugees globally since the second world war. arendt’s concept of statelessness is used as a framework for presenting the current situation of refugees on the one hand, and providing a criticism of international human rights on the other. -- the fate of the stateless statelessness is when a person is not recognized, or is disregarded, as a citizen under the laws of their state. it can occur due to a variety of reasons, which differ from one country to another, and from one political community to another. and unfortunately, the existence of stateless persons is a common reality of our current era. -- the emerging situation of stateless persons may also happen in the case when governments change their laws. in the indonesian case, for example, in dealing with violence they have experience in east lombok, -- ahmadis. this situation can be an intentionally domestic political step to exclude and marginalize the members of certain minority groups causing them to ultimately become stateless. another serious and critical reason is also referred to the integration of new state formation which often lacks the political consistency to protect its minority citizens. new states, with their government actors and institutions, may intentionally or unintentionally leave thousands of people stateless. -- a british liberal politician who served as a member of parliament in the united kingdom, declared in his book the refugee problem that refugees are basically defined as stateless in all their conditions. his book influenced further discussion of refugees. -- protocol" was related to citizenship status. in addition, although the complete draft of the protocol was postponed at that time, the concept of statelessness was still adopted into the 1954 and 1961 international convention. to that end, the united nations refugee agency (unhcr) has been entrusted with certain responsibilities with regard to the citizenship. even though the organization has devoted time, resources, and effort to the assistance of the stateless people, they still need to bring strong institutional improvement in challenging a high escalation of refugees today. -- united nations member states have tried to establish a special mechanism for the protection of “internally displaced persons” (idps) and “stateless persons.” conceptually, idps are persons or groups who leave their home or residence based on many kinds of attacks, discrimination, injustice, human rights violations. in this situation, they have not crossed an internationally recognized state border. in addition, in the case of children, if they are born to stateless persons or refugees, in some cases out of wedlock, they may be denied citizenship. some individuals may find themselves stateless because of the practice of discriminatory administrative policies. in many specific cases, such as sepulveda et. al, minorities are also considered “non-citizens” and “stateless persons.” -- hannah arendt is considered one the most important modern thinkers. she spent her entire life critically discussing statelessness as a core concern of human rights and international politics. besides the human condition, where she provides a useful debate on human rights, her book -- rights discourse. moreover, origins is as deeply concerned with the stateless explained as "unrespectable" and "the unwanted group," as the rest of us—the shocked onlookers at the horrible things that our governments do to their own people. arendt’s brilliant view in this book can be seen as a valuable foundation as we work to understand statelessness in our world. the origins of totalitarianism is more than just her intellectual writing. it is also a personal struggle to give voice to -- the exploration of arendt’s concept of statelessness is mainly found in chapter nine of origins. through this chapter, arendt offers updated criticism on the modern conception of human rights. she links the -- principles of international human rights. international human rights—according to her—fail to protect “brutalized citizens.” statelessness is closely associated with “the loss of a range of international treaties and national commitments” aimed to protect stateless minorities from becoming victims of massive attacks. her concept has inspired a human rights movement in recent decades. arendt reflects on statelessness based on her tragic experience as a refugee. she was born in 1906 in hannover to an assimilated jewish family, but was forced to leave germany in 1933 after being arrested -- other refugees who have been expelled from their countries surrounding the world wars. her personal experience can be seen as a parable of our century: persecution, statelessness, exile, a brief internment in a detention camp, immigration. in this horrific event, europe faced a wave of refugees. linda k. kerber, who served as president of the -- when hannah arendt, who herself was stateless for more than a decade, wrote memorably about statelessness a half-century ago, it was technically a legal term of art, describing ‘a person who is not considered as a national by any state.’ it is helpful to revisit arendt through her concept of statelessness in the shadow of a massive expulsion of minority groups and the global wave of refugees. judith butler, professor of comparative literature -- considered the only insoluble one, was indeed solved-namely, by means of a colonized and then conquered territory but this solved neither the problem of the minorities nor the stateless. on the contrary, like virtually all other events of the twentieth century, the solution of the jewish question merely produced a new category of refugees, the arabs, thereby increasing the number of the stateless and rightless by another 700,000 to 800,000 people. and what happened in palestine within the smallest territory and in terms of hundreds of thousands was then repeated in india on a large scale involving many millions of people. since the peace treaties of 1919 and 1920, the refugees and the stateless have attached themselves like a curse to all the newly established states on earth which were created in the image of the nation-state. the above description shows that statelessness is absolutely not just a “jewish problem” as it was once believed to be in the past, but a recurring 20th century predicament of the nation-state. butler also -- managing minority populations; hence, the reduction of ‘german jews to a non-recognized minority in germany’, the subsequent expulsions of the jews as ‘stateless people across the borders’, and the gathering of them ‘back from everywhere in order to ship them to extermination camps was an eloquent demonstration to the rest of the world how really to ‘liquidate’ all problems concerning minorities and the stateless.” statelessness can be applied and used as an analytical framework for looking at at the fate of victimized minority groups who are trapped in the destruction of their humanity around the world. this can be seen -- one difficult challenge is to provide a comprehensive mapping of stateless people. an international community and nation states have to build their understanding and awareness on “quantifying statelessness” as a “shared responsibility.” in this perspective, states should handle the first and the primary responsibility to identify and count stateless persons in order to manifest the international obligations towards these individuals (populations)—in accordance with international human rights under the 1975 un convention on the reduction of statelessness. to fulfill its statelessness mandate, as previously explained, un bodies such as the unhcr are required and tasked with sharing current information on various aspects of statelessness. all these duties should be supported by ngos and academia in identifying and quantifying the situations of stateless people. elizabeth g. ferris analyzed the problem in her book the politics of protection: the limits of humanitarian intervention. she summarizes that all international and national institutions have to give a decisive concern to consider statelessness as complicated and challenging task in executing the international human rights principles and commitment. by now, with increasing numbers of stateless people around the world and the implications this may have for national and regional securities, the international community is revisiting international -- the rise of ethnic consciousness in many parts of the world, and the fear of large-scale population movements involving refugees. ultimately, however, the problem of statelessness and disputed nationality can only be effectively addressed and solved by states themselves. arendt’s concept of statelessness has been reinterpreted through similar situations when the concept received wider academic enthusiasm and human rights movement. this is a big hope that this concept can revitalize a global awareness in providing a “protection scheme” of refugees worldwide. in addition, the challenge in analyzing this fact is a new contest of statelessness. ben reynolds of the diplomat notes that international law cannot fix statelessness, as it is created continuously by the international order. -- share on refugees, stateless, philosophy mantle image argus morales updated uzbekistan ends plight of thousands of stateless people with landmark law by emma batha -- london (thomson reuters foundation) - uzbekistan is to allow tens of thousands of stateless people to become citizens under a new law hailed by the united nations, which urged other countries to follow suit in ending the plight of some of the world’s most invisible people. -- agency (unhcr) said on thursday. the central asian country has more than 97,000 stateless people - one of the largest stateless populations in the world. globally, an estimated 10 to 15 million people are not recognised as -- the unhcr launched an ambitious campaign called #ibelong in 2014 to end statelessness in a decade. hollywood star cate blanchett threw her weight behind the drive last year. experts on statelessness say xenophobia and populism are complicating efforts to meet the 2024 deadline, and there has been little progress on finding solutions for big stateless populations like the rohingya in myanmar and bangladesh. -- kyrgyzstan made history last year when it became the first country in the world to end statelessness. in tajikistan, an amnesty introduced this year will allow thousands of stateless people to obtain residence permits, providing a potential route to citizenship in three years. -- 2024 deadline. stateless people often say they feel heavily stigmatised and forgotten. even buying a sim card, getting a driving licence, opening a bank account or getting married can be impossible. mantoo said acquiring a nationality was “a life-changing experience” for a stateless person. “it affects everything from their legal status to their physical and canadian centre on statelessness ____________________ * about -- + get involved + contact us * statelessness + what is statelessness? + who is stateless? + international principles + who is stateless in canada? + categories and legislation + canada -- + get involved + contact us * statelessness + what is statelessness? + who is stateless? + international principles + who is stateless in canada? + categories and legislation + canada -- your cart who is affected by statelessness? millions of people around the world are without a nationality. these are women, men, children, entire families, ethnic groups, and statelessness can happen at birth, or well into old age. because citizenship is based on country nationality law, and laws change, people can think and feel that they are citizens of a particular place -- identity document, access a government service, or travel.  there are several ways statelessness can occur: state succession unions of countries or individual countries break apart, and the -- soviet union the dissolution of the soviet union in 1991 resulted in thousands of cases of statelessness in the baltic states and in eastern europe. the unhcr reports that several countries were affected, resulting in at least 680,000 people in europe alone living without a nationality. these include "people with expired soviet passports who have not been able to acquire the nationality of the state in which they reside since the break-up of the soviet union" (unhcr, statelessness in central asia). yugoslavia -- in 1992. the unhcr reports that "in the countries that once made up yugoslavia, groups of people fell between the cracks created by new nationality laws and became stateless. though many have managed to establish their nationality, members of minority groups in south-eastern europe, especially the roma, continue to face difficulties accessing the documents necessary to confirm nationality. throughout europe, gaps in nationality legislation continue to create situations of statelessness" (unhcr, report on statelessness in south eastern europe). country and ethnic group summaries can be accessed on the region pages of the international observatory on statelessness. disputed territory parents who have a child in a disputed territory are often unable to register the birth of their child, and the child remains without a nationality, stateless. this can happen because government is no longer functioning. palestinians the most widely known example of this type of statelessness is the case of the palestinians. according to the canadian council for refugees "palestinians represent the largest stateless community in the world: more than half of the eight million or so palestinians are considered to be de jure [emphasis added] stateless persons" (ccr, statelessness). for more information on palestinian statelessness, see: ​ united nations and relief works agency, http://www.unrwa.org/ abbas shiblak, 2006, stateless palestinians women statelessness overwhelmingly affects women. victims of trafficking often have their travel documents taken from them, leaving them unable to prove their identities. many women find themselves victims of gender-based-violence and exploited into global trafficking rings, where they are often alone, prone to abuse and with little societal or legal support. for information on statelessness and trafficking, see: pascale mclean, 2011, incomplete citizenship, statelessness and human trafficking: a preliminary analysis of the current situation in west bengal, india vital voices, 2007, stateless and vulnerable to human trafficking in thailand united states department of state, 2009, trafficking in persons report alice edwards, 2009, displacement, statelessness and questions of gender equality and the convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women -- marriage, and are sometimes refused access to services in both the country of their birth, and their husband's home country. for information on statelessness and marriage, see: radha govil and alice edwards, 2014, "women, nationality and statelessness: the problem of unequal rights". edited by alice edwards and laura van waas, nationality and statelessness under international law zahra albarazi and laura van waas, 2014, towards the abolition of gender discrimination in nationality laws a summary of gender discrimination and statelessness prepared by the women's refugee commission can be seen here. -- children children are affected by statelessness in several ways. nationality laws that dictate citizenship rules for their parents affect children. the result is that children are born limited in the services they can -- more information see: gerard-rene de groot, 2014, "children, their right to a nationality and child statelessness". edited by alice edwards and laura van waas, nationality and statelessness under international law an emerging concern is the practice of international surrogacy and the effects on children. legal challenges are increasing as children are born in one country and adopted in another. for more information see: debra wilson, 2014, stranded and stateless: international surrogacy's legal nightmare jyothi kanics, 2014, preventing and addressing stateless in the context of international surrogacy arrangements ethnic groups minority ethnic groups are particularly vulnerable to statelessness, often discriminated against as a result of nationality legislation. in addition many minority ethnic groups around the world struggle to -- nepal, and haitian descendants in dominican republic. country and ethnic group summaries can be accessed on the region pages of the international observatory on statelessness. personal accounts of living without a nationality can be seen by visiting unhcr's #ibelong campaign. -- picture ​canadian centre on statelessness 2020 __________________________________________________________________ + short films + social justice + spotlight on statelessness + stories powered by thompson reuters foundation + violation of international law -- * blog * > * 30 years of statelessness in the former soviet union 30 years of statelessness in the former soviet union 13 september 2019 by sofia svensson -- republics adopted their own nationality laws yet the collapse of the ussr is one of the events in recent history that has resulted in mass statelessness. in ukraine around 35,000 people were left stateless (or at risk of statelessness) and almost double this number were left stateless or at risk of statelessness in russia. because former soviet states took different approaches to the gain or -- people who never exchanged their soviet passports for the passports of a newly formed state for one reason or another became vulnerable and, ultimately, stateless. who are stateless in the former soviet union? the most vulnerable people in terms of statelessness in former soviet countries are members of ethnic minorities. for example, the majority of lezgians living in dense communities in areas of azerbaijan -- documents, they took their case to the european court of human rights in 2010 (lakatosh and others v. russia). assisted by adc memorial they won the case. yet almost 10 years later they remain stateless and without documents. how many are stateless? according to published data, the number of stateless people in russia is falling, but is still high: the 2010 russian census reports that there were over 178,000 stateless persons in the country, while data from unhcr shows that there were 113,474 stateless persons in 2014,14 82,148 in 2017, and 75,679 as of early 2019. there is no doubt that the actual number of stateless persons in russia is much higher. according to assessments made by the unhcr on the basis of official data, in 2017 35,294 people who were stateless or at risk of statelessness were living in ukraine,10 while a 2017 report from the osce states that only 78 per cent of residents of ukraine have identity documents. it is worth noting that from 2014, the number of persons at risk of statelessness has increased significantly due to the military conflict between russia and ukraine. in the eastern parts of ukraine which has been seized by pro-russian armed groups, 57% of all -- what is the solution? the majority of stateless persons have grounds for acquiring, say, russian or ukrainian citizenship on the basis of their territorial origin, but the formalisation or inaccessibility of the procedure for doing this and defects in the corresponding laws of both countries trap stateless persons in a legal impasse on their path to citizenship. for them, the solution can be straightforward, although they still require legal assistance to approach the court in order to obtain a passport. for others who do not appear to have a right to acquire citizenship, the only option would be to undergo statelessness determination, but the procedure does not exist in many post-soviet countries, including russia and ukraine. many still lack an effective procedure to legalise stateless persons who, without valid identity documents, are not only deprived of access to realise their rights, but are also prosecuted for violating the migration laws of the countries where they are located. -- and the most important decision issued by russia’s constitutional court (case of noé mskhiladze, 2017), which could fundamentally improve the situation of stateless persons in russia. even though the russian ministry of internal affairs developed a draft law two years ago envisaging that stateless persons would be issued identity documents giving them the right to reside in russia, the right to work without work licenses and permits, and the possibility for former soviet -- ussr, many former soviet countries have still not been able to tackle the situation of documentation or resolve the issues around nationality that arose in its aftermath. this has meant that statelessness is now being passed on to a new generation. how many more decades will it take to eradicate statelessness in the region? share this explainer some of the boys rescued from a thai cave are 'stateless.' what does that mean? -- overlooked since the start of military rule in myanmar in the 1960s. three of the boys, as well as their coach, 25-year-old ekkapol chantawong, belong to thailand’s stateless population. “coach ek” and these boys have escaped from the treacherous caves, but remain trapped, as they have been all their lives, in a state of legal limbo. statelessness is a serious and little understood problem common in regions like the myanmar-thailand border plagued by conflict. stateless persons are not recognized as citizens of any country. “theoretically, all people must be under the care and protection of at least one -- although health care and education are provided to all people in thailand, it can take more than 10 years for some stateless people to get nationality to acquire thai citizenship, according to surapong. those awaiting a decision cannot legally work, open a bank account, -- labor. how did some of the members of the wild boars become stateless? like many others in this situation, they came from minority groups subjected to ethnic conflict, human-rights abuses and economic deprivation in myanmar. in many cases stateless persons are simply denied citizenship at birth. hundreds of thousands of them have crossed the border to northern thailand. -- coach ek was the boys’ only caregiver for 18 days. himself a member of the stateless shan community, he has said that the lack of status of some members of the team had often deterred the team from traveling to away games —and will prevent some of his talented players from becoming -- one of the young players, adul sam-on, who proved an invaluable translator to the team’s english-speaking rescuers, is a stateless member of the wa, a self-governing tribe not recognized by myanmar or thailand. adul’s parents smuggled him into mai sai when he was six -- of coach ek, to demonstrate their resiliency. the boys’ story has raised hopes of a better life for all stateless people in thailand. meanwhile, the team has vowed to play soccer every chance they can. the game provides them with a sense of normalcy, even in their very abnormal condition of statelessness. update, jul13: the independent newspaper reports that thai authorities have now promised to provide coach ek and the stateless boys legal assistance and say that, barring complications, all will have thai nationality within six months. -- explore related topics * statelessness * burmese refugees * world * india * 4 million indian citizens could be made stateless tomorrow. here’s what to know 4 million indian citizens could be made stateless tomorrow. here’s what to know -- but the list has been mired in controversy. the last time a draft was released, in 2018, 4.1 million people were left off, putting them at risk of being made stateless. many of them were poor, illiterate and/or members of the muslim minority. -- citizenship, or any other apart from indian, it would be illegal under international humanitarian law for india to strip their indian citizenship, thus making them stateless. so it’s more likely that india will have to send people to detention january 17, 2017 6:47am est | dispatches it’s time to end child statelessness in estonia un experts should address issue during review of estonia’s rights -- this week, the united nations committee on the rights of the child will review estonia’s child rights record. it is crucial that this include child statelessness. estonia's president toomas hendrik addresses the united nations general assembly in the manhattan borough of new york, u.s. september 21, 2016. -- as of january 2016, about 6.1 percent of estonia’s population of 1.3 million is stateless – 79,300 people. when estonia gained independence in 1991, the government adopted strict citizenship policies that made nearly 40 percent of the population stateless. residents who were not estonian citizens before world war ii – many of them ethnic russians – had to go through a strict naturalization process, including a -- disappointingly, while estonia has made some strides in reducing child statelessness since then, it has not fully addressed the problem. in 2015, estonia amended its citizenship law to make it easier for several categories of people, including children, to become naturalized from -- but there’s one glaring gap for children: adolescents between the ages of 16 and 18 and children born outside estonia to stateless residents of estonia still cannot automatically obtain citizenship. there are huge implications for these children. in estonia, the stateless hold a special legal status and children can access education and health care on an almost equal basis. but a lack of citizenship and identity can expose children to discrimination, meaning they often -- estonia’s government seems reluctant to want to change this. recommendations from other states to act on child statelessness, and statelessness more generally, at a un review last year were noted, but not accepted. estonia is also not a party to the principal international human rights treaties relating to statelessness, stating in its report to the committee on the rights of the child that it has found that, “persons with undetermined citizenship residing in estonia are currently enjoying all the rights under the convention [relating to the status of stateless persons].” of course, child statelessness is not just limited to estonia. at a time when there’s a global campaign to end all statelessness by 2024, the committee on the rights of the child should help focus attention on the particular challenges stateless children face. all children have a right to a nationality and to live in a society free from discrimination. the committee needs to send a clear message that this this article is more than 2 years old stateless in australia: new centre to shine light on those incarcerated without hope this article is more than 2 years old peter mcmullin centre on statelessness to develop responses to crisis affecting 10 million people worldwide -- [ ] a rohingya refugee child looks through the fence at a refugee camp in cox’s bazar, bangladesh. myanmar’s rohingya are one of the largest and most at-risk stateless groups. a new centre has opened in australia to research statelessness. photograph: mohammad ponir hossain/reuters every year, nations are asked by the united nations high commissioner for refugees how many stateless people are within its borders. last year, the australian government told the un that number was zero. under questioning in senate estimates, it emerged there were 37 stateless people being held by the australian government in immigration detention, on average for more than two-and-a-half years. 'every day i am crushed': the stateless man held without trial by australia for eight years -- on monday night, a new initiative was launched to shine a light on their plight. professor michelle foster from the university of melbourne will head the new peter mcmullin centre on statelessness with a mandate to research the scale of, and reasons for, statelessness and to develop responses to it, and work to protect the human rights of stateless people. “australia’s record on stateless persons leaves much to be desired,” foster wrote in pursuit this month. “by way of example, said has been recognised as a stateless person by the australian refugee review tribunal and yet the australian government refuses to release him from detention, or grant him a protection visa. “since there is no australian visa specifically for stateless persons, many are detained indefinitely in australian immigration detention and an unknown number have also been detained offshore in centres on nauru -- globally, it’s estimated up to 10 million people are currently stateless. the figure is only a estimate because the number can’t be truly gauged – the stateless are, almost by definition, the uncounted. foster told the guardian the issue of statelessness has existed “since there were states”, but that modern international legal efforts have not kept pace with the problem. “statelessness became a bit of a forgotten issue … while with refugee law we have thousands of decisions emanating out of courts, we have a lot of understanding, statelessness has been overlooked from an academic point of view. it became clear there is needed, a focal point in this region, to better understand this issue, and to develop policy to address it.” in 1954, a convention on stateless persons was brought into force, just three years after the – related – refugees convention. but while the refugees convention has become the international standard (though not -- “and there’s no reason for that,” foster said. “if you look at the statelessness convention, it’s almost word for word [with the refugee convention]: you’re outside your country of origin, you require the same protection as a refugee. what stateless people really need are the protections to allow them to establish a life with dignity in a new place.” australia does not have a specific visa for stateless people, despite a public pledge in 2011 “committed to minimising the incidence of statelessness and to ensuring that stateless person are treated no less favourably than people with an identified nationality”. the unhcr made a decade-long commitment in 2014 – i belong – to eliminate statelessness by 2024. australia condemns myanmar violence and says offenders 'must be held to -- read more forty percent of the world’s stateless are in australia’s region, the asia pacific. the rohingya ethnic and religious minority of myanmar are one of the largest and most at-risk stateless groups. denationalised by that country’s then-ruling military junta in the 1980s, the rohingya have long suffered ostracisation and persecution, one that has peaked in -- “the rohingya situation shows the vulnerability that follows from being stateless,” foster said. “it demonstrates densationslisation as a form of persecution, and that has led to even more extreme version of persecution.” menu myanmar’s rohingya refugees are the world’s largest group of stateless people share on facebook share on twitter -- may 11, 2015, at 2:37 pm myanmar’s rohingya refugees are the world’s largest group of stateless people by leah libresco -- to still be on the oceans, fleeing myanmar. if these groups of refugees are turned back, it’s not clear where the rohingya will be sent, because they are considered stateless. in fact, they are the largest group of stateless people in the world. rohingya residents of myanmar are not citizens of their own nation. in -- the united nations estimates that myanmar has relegated over a million rohingya to the status of stateless people — they constitute 10 percent of all stateless people in the world. over 800,000 stateless rohingya still live in myanmar, and 100,000 of them have been confined to restrictive and dangerous camps. myanmar has expelled doctors without borders from regions populated by rohingya, depriving residents of medical care and of foreign witnesses to attacks and massacres. country stateless population 1 myanmar 810k 2 côte d’ivoire 700 onward here’s what it’s like to be stateless 2 minute read -- media in may, one of his chief laments was that, with his passport deactivated and threat of jail time in the united states, he had turned into a stateless person. from his apartment in moscow, where he is neither a citizen nor allowed to stay any longer than his visa can be renewed, he claimed he simply has no viable place to go. -- others. according to the united nations and its refugee arm, the office of the high commissioner for refugees, there are more than 10 million people worldwide. this amounts to a new stateless baby born every 10 minutes. they’re born with no country, no documentation, little social support, and hardly any opportunity to advance. statelessness is a simple concept, although the causes are less clear. sometimes war and conflict drive people from their homes. other countries with poor social institutions can’t provide the paperwork or documents needed to travel abroad. one on hand, stateless people tend not to be charged taxes. they’re frequently exempt from unfair regulations or things like military drafts. yet living off government -- always clear. more than a third of the stateless are children, a statistic the u.n. hopes will encourage countries to deal with the stateless among them. by 2025, the organization hopes to eliminate statelessness entirely, from 10 million to zero. it’s not as easy as just granting status and distributing passports. one primary hurdle is compiling accurate numbers of stateless people, an inherent challenge with people living in the shadows. persuading countries to grant legal status—as president obama is expected to do this month for five million immigrants in the + social media home ending statelessness: interview with volker türk -- * español ending statelessness: interview with volker türk 19 april 2017 ceremony granting citizenship to formerly stateless persons in turkmenistan. r: volker türk, assistant high commissioner for protection, unhcr. ashgabat, 23 june 2014. -- the osce and the united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr) launched the handbook on statelessness in the osce areas last month. volker türk, assistant high commissioner for protection, unhcr, tells why preventing and remedying statelessness is high on the joint unchr-osce agenda. why is preventing statelessness important? statelessness concerns a basic human right, the right to citizenship. in contrast, for example, to the refugee issue, it is often invisible, forgotten, not really on the radar of governments. yet it fundamentally -- have access to basic services: healthcare, schools. just think of how many times in your daily life you have to produce your id papers. not only do people not really know about the plight of stateless people, they also often don't know that sometimes it is quite easy to resolve it, with political will and some changes to legislation. unhcr has been entrusted by the un general assembly to protect stateless people, to prevent statelessness and reduce it where it exists. it is part of our core mandate. with our #ibelong campaign we aim to end statelessness by 2024. how does statelessness arise? sometimes, stateless is a gender issue. there are still 26 countries in the world that discriminate on the basis of gender with regard to the way they confer nationality. for example, if a woman marries a foreigner or a stateless person, she cannot in these 26 countries confer her nationality to her children. there have been some harrowing examples of the children then becoming stateless. in the osce area, statelessness has often arisen in relation to state succession, the dissolution of what used to be one country – yugoslavia, the soviet union, also czechoslovakia. if statelessness is often invisible, how can you find out how many people are stateless and reach out to them? this is one of our biggest issues. we have estimated that about 10 million people are stateless worldwide, but there are only 3.5 million people that we really know about. we need to work with census institutes, with the people that manage documentation registries, and -- to preventing these problems in the future. you mentioned that statelessness can be relatively easy to resolve. are there examples of success in the osce area? -- people with undetermined nationality. they rightly claim that the status they accord non-citizens is higher than what is foreseen in the 1954 convention [un convention related to the status of stateless persons]. secondly, they have set up a path to naturalization, which is equally important. but russia has also done a lot – we see significant a reduction in the russian federation in the number of formally stateless people. it is important to point out that these matters affect the personal lives of human beings: they should not become a subject of tensions between states. we encourage states to work on statelessness at the human and technical levels and find the ways and means to deal with it that serve the people best. has unhcr worked together with the osce to prevent or remedy statelessness? we have worked quite closely with the osce – with the high commissioner -- hcnm, unhcr and the european commission joined forces in 2011 to bring government officials from across the region together for a regional conference on statelessness in zagreb, producing the zagreb declaration, a set of recommendations to eliminate the causes of statelessness. further regional conferences, for example on durable solutions for displaced persons from kosovo, and also mapping exercises conducted by unhcr to assess the need for improvements have led to -- actually seen a lot of success – in turkmenistan, for example. the establishment of the new republics in central asia left thousands of former soviet union citizens stateless. sometimes people didn’t register or didn’t get the proper documentation at the time when the new state issued its nationality laws, and as a result they became stateless. to remedy the situation, it was important, first of all, to engage in dialogue with the government and get their support. in 2009 we co-organized a regional conference in ashgabat on preventing statelessness. in 2010 the turkmen government adopted an action plan to eliminate statelessness. secondly, we reached out to communities, to make sure they knew about the possibility of having their nationality confirmed and how to go about it. this led to around 5,500 stateless persons receiving turkmen citizenship between 2007 and 2016 and a further 5,500 being naturalized by the end of 2016. i personally attended a ceremony in ashgabat a few years ago, in which the interior minister handed nationality certificates to formerly stateless people – it was a colourful, joyful event. how do you expect the osce-unhcr handbook on statelessness in the osce area will help to eliminate statelessness? i think it is great that we could produce this handbook on statelessness together with the two osce institutions odihr and hcnm. both them are deeply concerned by the issue. from the hcnm perspective, we know that minority groups are often marginalized and that they can end up in a situation of statelessness as a result. the most glaring example is roma and sinti communities in the western balkans – but also in ukraine. this is another important area where our two organizations -- i hope that the information and good practices presented in the handbook will inspire discussions and encourage further engagements and concrete actions by participating states to eradicate statelessness in the osce area. we hope very much that all osce participating states will accede to both of the un conventions [the 1954 un convention related to the status of stateless persons and the 1961 un convention on the reduction of statelessness], because that would be the strongest signal, and maybe there could even be a decision by the osce to make that point and to support the unhcr’s global #ibelong campaign, lift it citizenship citizenship for stateless persons who are born in norway citizenship for stateless persons who are born in norway __________________________________________________________________ * printfriendly.com stateless dominicans? october 31, 2013 -- what are the political and economic implications for the dominican republic and the now stateless dominican-haitians? q1: what are the roots of the tensions between the two countries? -- access to the social services they would be entitled to as citizens: health care, employment, and education. moreover, it makes these stateless individuals vulnerable to exploitation. in addition to complicating the political situation in the dominican worldsstateless.org [instituteonstatelessnessandinclusion.png] about the institute our “world’s stateless” reports navigating the site × stateless persons in europe regional standards europe’s ‘refugee crisis’ growing engagement by the european union country profiles the european network on statelessness (ens) - from chris nash table of contents stateless persons in europe statelessness affects around 600,000 people in europe today. most can trace their situation back to the political upheaval of the 1990s, in particular the dissolution of the union of soviet socialist republics (ussr), but also the breakup of yugoslavia. indeed, over 80% of the total reported stateless population in europe live in just four countries, all successor states of the soviet union: latvia, the russian federation, estonia and ukraine. the numbers affected in each of these countries continue to decline. nevertheless, a quarter of a century after state succession took place, nearly half a million people remain stateless in these four states. in the six states to emerge from the socialist federal republic of yugoslavia, a total of almost 10,000 stateless persons are reported and others remain at risk of statelessness due to lack of key forms of documentation. across europe, the other main context in which statelessness arises is migration. in some cases, people who were already stateless in their country of origin arrive in europe within the mixed migration flows, as migrants, trafficking victims or refugees. in other cases, people may experience citizenship problems and become stateless following their arrival, due to the loss or deprivation of nationality while they are away from their country. with the mass influx in 2015 of migrants and refugees into europe, the number of stateless persons in some receiving states has grown significantly. for instance, in sweden, the reported figure for stateless persons in the country climbed from 20,450 at the end of 2013 to 31,062 at the end of 2015. moreover, children born in europe to migrant or refugee parents can sometimes be exposed to statelessness as a result of discriminatory nationality laws of the country of origin or a conflict of nationality laws. the nationality laws of many european states have been found to fail to adequately protect children born on their territory from statelessness. in september 2015, the report ‘no child should be stateless’ demonstrated that more than half of european parties to relevant international conventions have not properly implemented their obligations to ensure that all stateless children born in the country acquire a nationality . the same report also highlighted how other factors, such as child abandonment, international surrogacy or cross-border adoption, and systemic birth registration obstacles for particular groups are also producing statelessness in europe. statelessness in europe is more comprehensively mapped than in any other region: unhcr has statistical data on statelessness for 42 out of the 50 countries that fall within the scope of their european regional bureau. the total figure reported by unhcr for persons under its statelessness mandate in europe as part of its statistical reporting at the end of 2015 is 592.151 persons. latvia and the russian federation have stateless populations of over 100,000 persons within their territory. stateless populations in estonia, ukraine, sweden, germany and poland all exceed 10.000 individuals. table x: countries in europe with over 10.000 stateless persons -- #stat… rt @enstatelessness: in its first-ever decision on the right to nationality, the un human rights committee calls on the netherlands to enac… -- [twitter-icon.png] [facebook-icon.png] © 2017 institute on statelessness and inclusion | restrictions apply webdesign by robiz.nl webdesign tilburg ‘we are taboo everywhere’: how lgbtiq+ people, and their children, become stateless 13 août 2020, 03:27 cest -- 1. thomas mcgee phd researcher, peter mcmullin centre on statelessness, university of melbourne -- this isn’t just a singular case. for many children born to same-sex couples through international surrogacy, there is a risk they could become stateless — unable to gain citizenship in the country where they were born, or their parents’ home countries. -- couples and one for the children of straight couples. what does statelessness mean? statelessness is defined under international law as not being recognised as a citizen by any of the world’s 195 recognised states. according to the un’s conservative estimate, there are some 12 million stateless people globally. in practical terms, stateless people face many challenges due to their lack of citizenship. while these differ significantly from one context to the next, common experiences include the inability to access vital -- cases like the kivitis’ daughter have brought high-profile attention to the risk of statelessness associated with lgbtiq+ parenting situations. similar cases have been compiled by campaigners in europe, where -- an irish-polish lesbian couple, for instance, gave birth to a daughter through ivf in spain in 2018. the girl, sofia, is currently stateless because neither woman’s country will recognise her right to citizenship. her spanish citizenship is still pending. -- and before international commercial surrogacy arrangements were banned in india and thailand, the children of many same-sex couples born in these countries were at risk of statelessness. however, statelessness is also a problem that lgbtiq+ people themselves may face. my recently published research has identified scores of stateless lgbtiq+ people around the world. __________________________________________________________________ -- __________________________________________________________________ stateless lgbtiq+ people face double marginalisation eliana rubashkyn. wikimedia commons why do we hear so little about their experiences? indeed, this was the question that motivated me to study the links between statelessness and sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, and sex characteristics (relating to a person’s physical sexual anatomy). having worked on statelessness for the last decade, i have attended many conferences with little consideration given to lgbtiq+ people. in contrast, much research has been conducted on the experiences of -- as eliana rubashkyn, an intersex person from colombia who experienced years of statelessness before receiving asylum and citizenship in new zealand, explained to me: -- is a chronic violation of human rights. my research highlights that stateless lgbtiq+ people often face a significant double marginalisation. they are discriminated because of their sexuality or gender expression, as well as their lack of -- __________________________________________________________________ for example, one stateless queer man in lebanon described fears of being arrested on grounds of public immorality (a common charge against the lgbtiq+ community) and lacking the necessary paperwork to establish his identity. while he is not the only stateless person in his family (due to gender discrimination in lebanese citizenship law), the risks are compounded in his case. it goes without saying that being stateless can also make any problem i encounter due to my sexual orientation and gender identity much worse. and vice versa. while no statistics are available, for some lgbtiq+ people, discrimination is what caused them to become stateless in the first place. -- desperate to prevent officials from deporting her back to colombia, where she had suffered persecution, she ultimately renounced her colombian citizenship, making herself stateless. she was later resettled in new zealand and gained citizenship in 2018. asylum requests are often denied within asylum contexts, research shows both statelessness and lgbtiq+ situations are often missed or misunderstood during the process of assessing claims for protection. -- convinced. the lack of attention paid to “rainbow statelessness” in the media and policy debates may further lead governments to question the credibility of statements made by stateless lgbtiq+ asylum seekers. this is why it’s critical to bring more attention to the links between statelessness and sexual orientation or gender identity. better understanding this intersection is necessary to improve laws and policies that discriminate against lgbtiq+ people, and sometimes render them, or their children, stateless. __________________________________________________________________ -- * gay rights * lgbtiq * statelessness notre audience updated uzbekistan ends plight of thousands of stateless people with landmark law by emma batha -- london (thomson reuters foundation) - uzbekistan is to allow tens of thousands of stateless people to become citizens under a new law hailed by the united nations, which urged other countries to follow suit in ending the plight of some of the world’s most invisible people. -- agency (unhcr) said on thursday. the central asian country has more than 97,000 stateless people - one of the largest stateless populations in the world. globally, an estimated 10 to 15 million people are not recognised as -- the unhcr launched an ambitious campaign called #ibelong in 2014 to end statelessness in a decade. hollywood star cate blanchett threw her weight behind the drive last year. experts on statelessness say xenophobia and populism are complicating efforts to meet the 2024 deadline, and there has been little progress on finding solutions for big stateless populations like the rohingya in myanmar and bangladesh. -- kyrgyzstan made history last year when it became the first country in the world to end statelessness. in tajikistan, an amnesty introduced this year will allow thousands of stateless people to obtain residence permits, providing a potential route to citizenship in three years. -- 2024 deadline. stateless people often say they feel heavily stigmatised and forgotten. even buying a sim card, getting a driving licence, opening a bank account or getting married can be impossible. mantoo said acquiring a nationality was “a life-changing experience” for a stateless person. “it affects everything from their legal status to their physical and peyre-costa/nrc * name was changed for protection concerns. new report: 45,000 children may become stateless in post-is iraq published 30. apr 2019|edited 29. apr 2019 -- sustainable future for them and for the country,” said jan egeland, secretary general of the norwegian refugee council. “a society cannot be at peace if it allows a generation of stateless children in its midst.” we the peoples five reasons why you should care about statelessness if we don’t work to ensure that everyone in europe and the world has a -- image for post image for post image for post nuzret hodzic, a stateless man living in montenegro, says that without a nationality he feels like a shadow. © unhcr/nena lukina -- the problem is of grave concern not only to the roma, but also to other stateless people in europe, whose number rises to hundreds of thousands. statelessness creates a chasm between them and the wider community, threatening the cohesion of our society as a whole. -- from one generation to the next. here are five key reasons why statelessness should constitute an ever-present concern. -- every day, children are born without a nationality, through no fault of their own. countries across the globe report 3.2 million stateless people on their territories — but their true number could even be three times higher. the main reason behind their statelessness is discrimination. most people are denied a nationality due to their histories, their looks, their language or their faith. exclusion and persecution often describe the existence of the world’s stateless populations. “you’re a shadow here… just a shadow. you pass by and no one sees you. -- working, and all of a sudden he loses a leg. and then, he is disabled. this is what this situation has done to me,” said nuzret hodzic, a stateless man living in montenegro. 2. statelessness may affect people in your community or country from scandinavia to the black sea, hundreds of thousands of people live without nationality in europe. a large number of people became stateless after the dissolution of the soviet union. more than 20 years later, statelessness remains a concern in that part of europe. in addition, in the states that once made up yugoslavia, groups of people fell through the cracks of the new legislation, becoming stateless. though many have managed to establish their nationality, members of minority groups, especially roma, continue to face difficulties. in many countries across the continent, gaps in nationality laws continue to create statelessness at birth and later in life. stateless people are not asking for special treatment. they are only asking for equal treatment these stateless people are not asking for special treatment. they are only asking for equal treatment — the chance to have the same opportunities as all citizens. “one day, i presented my stateless document to the bank. they asked me ‘where is this country “stateless” located?’”, explained anastasia trevogin, a formerly stateless woman living in france. 3. statelessness can take away basic rights that most of us take for granted statelessness is not just the lack of nationality: it can mean a life without education or medical care. it can mean a life without the ability to move freely, without prospects or hope. -- security. nino, a stateless young woman from georgia, saw her dreams put on hold due to her lack of nationality: “i have been playing [the trombone] for years, but because i am stateless, i couldn’t continue my studies at the conservatory to have a profession that i dream of. the only job which i can have with my current status is being a babysitter.” 4. statelessness is a key aspect of the fastest-growing refugee emergency of our time statelessness has deep links to some of the world’s most pressing global emergencies, like the myanmar crisis, driving over 600,000 rohingya to bangladesh. born and raised in myanmar for multiple -- the syria conflict is another crisis where we see links between forced displacement and risks of statelessness. a 2014 assessment found that the conflict has left many women without their husbands and many times without a marriage certificate which puts their children at risk of statelessness, as syrian children born outside syria as refugees can only acquire nationality through their fathers. adults also face the risk of statelessness when their documentation is lost, destroyed or confiscated due to the conflict or displacement. although the majority of stateless people in europe were born in the region, there are also stateless migrants and refugees who have come from other areas with known stateless populations, including syria, afghanistan, cote d’ivoire and iraq. -- it is governments that establish who their nationals are, and governments can change their laws and procedures, to give stateless people a place to belong. together with regional institutions, civil society and the stateless people themselves, they should join forces in order to find effective solutions. the ultimate solution to statelessness is the granting of nationality. but until this is achieved, it is important that stateless people enjoy their basic human rights, allowing them to live in dignity. in order to achieve this, governments in europe should ensure that: * stateless persons or persons whose citizenship is undetermined acquire or confirm their citizenship. * no child is born stateless by granting citizenship automatically at birth to all children born in europe who are otherwise stateless. * all children born in europe are registered at birth regardless of their parents’ nationality, documentation or legal status so that every child’s legal identity is established and the risk of statelessness is reduced. * stateless migrants are identified and protected and the naturalization of stateless migrants and refugees is facilitated. * all european countries are parties to both un statelessness conventions. aikaterini kitidi is a communications officer at unhcr. click here for more information on how to take action to end statelessness. this article was originally published by euronews. australian immigration and asylum 'they are breaking him': the stateless refugee australia may never release asylum seekers on a boat near christmas island -- gulistan’s campaign the bare facts make akam’s case straightforward: he is stateless – no country recognises him as its citizen – and he was quickly able to prove a well-founded fear of persecution in iran. australia recognised posted inopinion stateless rohingya more isolated than ever already in desperate straits, the sprawling rohingya diaspora has seen -- the return of democracy to the country in 2011. they are now a stateless diaspora of more than 3 million people, scattered across countries such as saudi arabia, pakistan, india, thailand, malaysia, indonesia and bangladesh, where more than a million -- saqib sheikh serves as project director of the rohingya project, a grassroots initiative for financial inclusion of stateless rohingya worldwide, as well as adviser/co-founder for the refugee coalition of malaysia, a network of 14 refugee communities based in malaysia. he > there are 12 million stateless people in the world. who are they? without a country to belong to, many of these people lack some of the -- matt davis 26 august, 2019 statelessness shutterstock * according to the united nations high commissioner for refugees, the world is host to 12 million people who don't officially belong to any state. * people can become stateless through a variety of means, including racial discrimination, sexist nationality laws, voluntary choice, or bureaucratic accidents. * who are these millions of stateless individuals? what is life like for them? can their situation be solved? __________________________________________________________________ -- control, you can be denied an education, healthcare, employment, legal rights, any kind of identification, and many other things that your peers may have access to. statelessness may live entirely in the realm of abstract bureaucracy, but it can have some very real and concrete impacts on your life. -- the first place. how do people become stateless? often, statelessness arises due to the quirks of international law. for instance, many states offer citizenship based on either jus soli — where individuals born in a given nation acquire that nationality — jus sanguinis — where citizenship is inherited from one's parents — or some combination of the two. when these systems have cracks, sometimes the result can be statelessness. for instance, canada offers citizenship through jus sanguinis, but only -- citizenship under chinese law. as a second-generation, foreign-born canadian, she was also ineligible for canadian citizenship, and thus became stateless. another major source of statelessness is due to sexism. twenty-five states also don't permit mothers to pass on their nationality in the same way that fathers can, as is the case in iran, qatar, and kuwait. when the father is stateless himself, unmarried to the mother, or has died, among other reasons, offspring in these countries suddenly find themselves without a nation. -- others renounce their statehood or lose their statehood when their nation dissolves — as was the case for many native russian soviet citizens living in estonia and latvia, who suddenly became stateless when the soviet union dissolved. the main source of statelessness, however, arises due to states discriminating against a particular group. the syrian government, for example, stripped hundreds of thousands of kurds of their statehood in a 1962 census, claiming that the kurds had immigrated illegally, and sparking considerable international criticism. today, the myanmar government is perhaps the biggest contributor to the modern stateless population with their refusal to grant the rohingya people citizenship. the rohingya have been present in myanmar since the 8th century, but -- to intend to expel its rohingya population. notable examples of statelessness [json] -- german to swiss back to german to u.s. citizenship. however, in between the years in which he was a german and swiss citizen, einstein was stateless for five years. though he was born in the german kingdom of württemburg, einstein renounced his citizenship in order to avoid military service in 1896. five years later, he would be granted swiss citizenship. mehran karimi nasseri was not so lucky. he has been allegedly stateless since 1977, and 18 of those years he spent living in charles de gaulle airport. nasseri claims to have been expelled from iran, his home -- though these examples highlight some of the more whimsical ways one can lose their statehood, most stateless persons suffer a significant amount of abuse because of their lack of statehood. the unhcr has stated its goal to end statelessness by 2024 by a variety of actions, among them: * encouraging countries to change problematic laws (such as those 25 -- * improving the process by which states dissolve or separate. it's a lofty goal, but one can't help but to imagine that the stateless will always be with us. related articles around the web * stateless in europe: 'we are no people with no nation' | world news ... › * the stateless in the united states - the center for migration studies ... › * statelessness - unhcr › women population law refugees immigration government global issues #brookings » feed brookings » comments feed brookings » the state of statelessness in the middle east comments feed alternate alternate alternate -- coronavirus (covid-19) » the state of statelessness in the middle east * facebook -- future development the state of statelessness in the middle east omer karasapan friday, may 15, 2015 -- * according to the unhcr there are some 10 million stateless people worldwide, although the institute on statelessness and inclusion (isi) cites a number of over 15 million. in part, the differences are due to different interpretations of palestinian refugees. chris nash, director of the european network on statelessness describes the stateless as “legal ghosts, exposed to human rights abuses and with no recourse to justice.” lacking legal documents, these individuals are without access -- the middle east now faces the prospect of adding hundreds of thousands to the stateless population. of the 4 million syrian refugees, over 1 million are children under 18—many having left syria without proper papers. there are also around 10,000 minors who have arrived in neighboring countries paperless and without an accompanying adult. more at risk of permanent statelessness are tens of thousands of newborn refugees, overwhelmingly from syria, with many lacking papers to prove their nationality. some 70 percent of babies born to syrians -- moreover, 500,000 more are expected from syria before the end 2015. today’s syrian refugees are in addition to three older stateless populations in the middle east. the palestinians loom large and their challenges and numbers are of an order all its own. the isi report on the world’s stateless discusses the palestinians in three categories: palestinians who fall under the unrwa mandate; palestinians under unhcr’s refugee mandate; and palestinians potentially under unhcr’s statelessness protection mandate. accordingly, there are over 5 million palestinians who are stateless or whose nationality status is unclear. the other distinct stateless groups include several hundred thousand bidoon in the persian gulf region. when boundaries in the region were established, some countries used tribal affiliations rather than borders to determine citizenship and thousands ended up without any nationality. there are also over 200,000 stateless kurds in syria and lebanon. syria had announced a policy to address this issue in 2011 but the deterioration of the security situation has precluded a resolution. -- in november 2014 the unhcr announced a global campaign to end statelessness within 10 years. the campaign does not include the palestinians since, according to u.n. refugee head antonio guterres, the u.n. general assembly has recognized palestine as a state, and that -- humanitarian and aid agencies, and development institutions need to lay the groundwork for providing the support and resources needed to ensure that we don’t add to the number of the stateless as we grapple with this global challenge. march 24, 2020 8:00pm edt malaysia: migrants, stateless at extra risk from virus ensure all have access to health care without discrimination -- (new york) – the malaysian federal and state governments should ensure that covid-19 related health care services are available without discrimination to all migrants, stateless people, and refugees, human rights watch said today. urgent measures are especially needed in the state of sabah, which has a large migrant and stateless population. the government should carry out multilingual public messaging campaigns -- arrest or deportation, human rights watch said. “malaysia can’t effectively combat covid-19 if migrants, stateless people, and refugees are unable to get health care because they can’t afford it, face discrimination, or fear arrest and deportation,” said -- sabah, in particular, has a large population of irregular migrants, stateless people, and holders of various refugee passes issued by the sabah state government, as well as oil palm plantations and timber concessions that rely heavily on migrant workers. all face serious -- the two towns in sabah with the highest reported coronavirus cases are lahad datu and tawau, both with large populations of migrants and stateless people. for many migrant populations, the potential risk of a serious outbreak is compounded by the inadequate sanitation, lack of running water, and small, crowded houses that typify these communities, human rights watch said. the state capital, kota kinabalu, which has also reported covid-19 cases, also has a large migrant and stateless population, thousands of whom live on island and coastal communities and work in formal and informal sectors in the city. can europe make it? citizenship stripping, expulsion and statelessness: counter terrorism measures have gone too far -- the condition of necessity, is by definition arbitrary. so too is denationalisation that is discriminatory in purpose or effect; deprivation of nationality that results in statelessness or directly leads to a violation of other (in particular non-derogable) rights; or withdrawal of citizenship that is executed without due process. -- of the policy as a whole. on 9 july 2020, the institute on statelessness and inclusion is co-hosting a side-event to the un virtual counter terrorism week on ‘citizenship stripping, expulsion and statelessness: have counter terrorism measures gone too far?’ with the un special rapporteur on counter terrorism and human rights. this event forms part of a year of foreign policy, global poverty, government how statelessness affects global poverty statelessness statelessness is as much of an economic burden as it is a social and political one. according to a recent foreign policy article, statelessness results in “chronic economic instability” because it is often accompanied by joblessness and poverty. according to the u.s. department of state, a stateless person is someone who does not “enjoy” the rights of “citizenship – the legal bond between a government and an individual – in any country.” in other -- although the u.n. high commissioner for refugees counted 3.5 million stateless people in 2011, they estimated that the number could be as high as 12 million people. foreign policy reports that as many as 15 million people might be stateless today. the department of state notes that the causes of statelessness are diverse. they include failure to register newborns properly, birth to stateless parents, discrimination against minorities and traditional attitudes towards registration, to name a few. not only are stateless people denied government-issued identification, preventing them from acquiring formal labor jobs, but they are also subjects of social discrimination. these realities exclude them from even more employment opportunities, leads to fewer chances of regular employment and leaves stateless persons even more destitute. iframe: -- foreign policy also reports that very little research exists about the effects of statelessness on economies. some existing studies suggest that stateless persons have a negative economic impact on smaller nations in which they may make up a more significant percentage of the population. in this case, granting citizenship to stateless persons might actually improve these nations’ gross domestic product output. although stateless individuals can obtain cards which signify their status, only a few thousand people have been able to take advantage of this opportunity. one of the sustainable development goals of the -- the u.s. state department suggests that universal birth registration and increasing access to naturalization and citizenship will help solve statelessness. as foreign policy points out, nations must want to increase inclusiveness with stateless persons and cease the use of political reasoning for ostracizing them before changes can occur. policies and prejudices might take many years to change, but the economic, social and humanitarian advantages of granting citizenship to stateless people are worth the fight. – addie pazzynski -- https://borgenproject.org/wp-content/uploads/the_borgen_project_logo_sm all.jpg borgen project2016-07-24 01:30:372020-06-18 13:11:17how statelessness affects global poverty get smarter * search where are we going to live?: migration and statelessness in haiti and the dominican republic -- ended a moratorium on deportations on june 18, 2015. “where are we going to live?” migration and statelessness in haiti and the dominican republic reveals the reckless way in which the two governments are handling the deportation, expulsion and “spontaneous” -- the country would be screened and protected from expulsion. however hundreds of dominicans of haitian descent, and stateless people, have been caught up in a continuing wave of deportations. there is a lack of formal mechanisms for people who have been wrongly -- reparations. in addition, haitian authorities lack any mechanisms to deal with dominicans of haitian descent who have been expelled or have arrived in haiti, including those who are stateless. “this crisis was long in the making. it is high time for authorities * statelessness: a forgotten crisis statelessness: a forgotten crisis mira siegelberg ▪ fall 2016 [1475503817siegelbergconstantinenuer666.jpg] the nubian community has lived in kenya for over a hundred years, yet many became stateless after kenya’s independence in 1963. for years, nubian youth had to go through a nationality verification process called “vetting” in order to obtain a national id card, and often had -- nowhere people, 2015, 374 pp. statelessness is a forgotten crisis. at least that is the claim at the heart of a recently inaugurated campaign sponsored by the un high commissioner for refugees (unhcr) to draw attention to the estimated -- persecution, or the physical disappearance of state territory due to climate change. however, according to international agreements established in the wake of the second world war, the term “stateless person” applies only to individuals who are not recognized as nationals by any state. refugees, by contrast, are defined in a separate -- until quite recently, the international institutions established to manage and care for people who have lost state protection treated the legally stateless as a marginal issue. while refugee law has developed into a fairly robust area of jurisprudence, statelessness has never been the subject of sustained legal study. the un only embarked on its campaign to illuminate the plight of the stateless and lobby for their enfranchisement in 2014, the same year the first global forum on statelessness in the netherlands brought together humanitarian practitioners and scholars to establish statelessness as its own field of research. column | justice matters stories of statelessness aug 7, 2017 -- personal, the agency name and personal names are not used — an indication of how human dignity, even one's name, is denied to the stateless. ______ -- the rights. ameera could not report the abuse since the police had previously harassed her. the staff of the shelter say ameera's story is the norm, a "systemic bullying" of the stateless. as a stateless woman, all but invisible, ameera possessed no nationality, no rights, no protection and, now, no child. as an asylum seeker she is registered with the united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr), which gives her a refugee identity card. however, malaysia is not a signatory to the international conventions on statelessness or migrants, so she has no pathway to stability ("regularization"). malaysia simply does not grant citizenship to rohingya or to their children born in malaysia. so the sad ending to -- enduring abuse. a stateless person, by definition, does not have a nationality. a stateless person belongs nowhere, to no one and is barely regarded as human in relation to basic social protections or rights that ought to be universal. the help offered by the shelter can be meager but it -- despite the hazards of migration, saniyi (13 when she migrated) exhibits the unrelenting hope of so many migrants. saniyi lived in chronic poverty in myanmar, a stateless child of a stateless single mother. she had heard stories of girls in malaysia who sent money to their family, so when a relative asked if she wanted to become a -- saniyi was referred to the shelter for protection. the shelter, together with unhcr, began advocacy for resettlement to a third country, since as a rohingya she would remain stateless forever in malaysia. after a year, she passed the settlement process and is now living in the united states, with an agency overseeing her development -- ______ accompanying stateless persons is a long road with no end in sight. regarding the shelter ministry, the director says: "for as long as the refugees remain marginalized in this country we will continue to -- 1651 migration | stories of statelessness share on facebook tweet this article print this article e-mail this + newspaper archive living in a state of statelessness opinion: why people who find themselves without nationality need state -- ‘over the past 12 years, the refugee appeals tribunal which assesses elibility for refugee status has found that 82 people were stateless but not refugees.’ photograph: getty images ‘over the past 12 years, the refugee appeals tribunal which assesses elibility for refugee status has found that 82 people were stateless but not refugees.’ photograph: getty images -- stateless people are those who are not considered as nationals by any state. given that states are charged with guaranteeing our human rights and providing us with the documents we need to travel, to marry and to -- ireland. he has no nationality, no citizenship or the rights, privileges and duties such a status would bestow on him. he is stateless. the authorities have asked him to get documentation from the kuwaiti embassy but they won’t provide any because they say he is not a kuwaiti citizen. he is a kuwaiti bidoon, and like over 100,000 others in the country in which he was born, he is not recognised as a citizen. his situation is not unique. there are at least 10 million stateless people worldwide, people with no nationality through no fault of their own. some end up on the wrong side of redrawn borders. others inherit -- having deep-rooted and longstanding ties to their communities and countries. under some legal regimes women cannot pass on their nationality to their children. other people become stateless due to administrative obstacles; they fall through the cracks of a system that ignores or has forgotten them. -- thankfully, there are signs of a shift in international attitudes. just three years ago, there were barely 100 states party to the two statelessness treaties – the 1954 un convention relating to the status of stateless persons and the 1961 convention on the reduction of statelessness. today the number of accessions stands at 144, which unhcr believes is a sign of the requisite momentum needed to eradicate statelessness within 10 years. already, legal changes in bangladesh have enabled 300,000 stateless urdu-speakers to become citizens. in kyrgyzstan, more than 65,000 former ussr citizens have become kyrgyz citizens since 2009. the solution for many stateless people will need to be found in the countries where they live. for stateless people outside of their birth country, other states will need to assist in finding solutions for them. this includes ireland, which signed up to the two statelessness conventions in 1962 and 1973. there are a number of good provisions in irish law aimed at preventing statelessness and assisting stateless people. for example, a child born in ireland is an irish citizen from birth if he or she is not entitled to the citizenship of any country. -- so what to do? an increasing number of countries have recently introduce d statelessness determination procedures. the uk introduced a procedure last year and belgium, the netherlands and turkey are looking at ways to improve the identification of stateless people. statelessness determination procedures have long been established in countries including france, hungary, italy and spain. -- consequences. unhcr has undertaken a scoping exercise on statelessness in ireland to advance this case. it is not possible to put a figure on the number of stateless people in ireland, in the absence of a procedure and coherent data. however there are some relevant data sources. over the past 12 years, the refugee appeals tribunal, which assesses eligibility for refugee status found that 82 people were stateless but not refugees. while these findings were made strictly for the purposes of the refugee process, they indicate a small group of people who may be stateless and for whom there is no clear procedure to follow to resolve their case. there have also been a number of high court cases involving stateless or potentially stateless persons. while irish officials have undertaken a range of efforts to try to resolve individual cases, the lack of official documentation or a statelessness declaration often continue to pose significant problems. durable solution in recent months the irish authorities have issued the first two declarations of statelessness. unhcr welcomes this development and stands ready to support the authorities in further developing arrangements or mechanisms which can be accessed by stateless people in ireland. -- sophie magennis is unhcr head of office. the united nations high commissioner for refugees this week launched its global campaign to end statelessness worldwide by 2024. subscribe. * unhcr * human rights * statelessness * statistics up to 15,000 stateless people in italy, unhcr estimates published on : 2019/11/15 -- by ansa published on : 2019/11/15 some 732 people are officially recognized as stateless in italy. but the real number could be between 3,000 and 15,000 people, according to a unhcr report on statelessness in italy, portugal, and spain. in italy, there are officially 732 stateless persons. however, due to the difficulty of identifying them, the actual number could be between 3,000 and 15,000 people. most of them came from former yugoslavia and arrived in italy when they were very young; or they were born in italy to yugoslavian migrant parents. a recent unhcr report on the impact of statelessness on access to human rights in italy, spain, and portugal contained these figures. a key issue, according to the paper, is how long it takes to be granted statelessness status in italy. the authors mention the case of dari as an example: it took the 28-year-old 13 years to get it. unhcr regional representative for southern europe roland schilling called on italy to make recognition procedures more accessible, effective and rapid. he also said that stateless people should be recognized as italian citizens at birth. italian law, he said, already provides for this but the law is not implemented. spain: 3,594 stateless people in portugal, there are 553 people officially recognized as stateless, many of whom were born and raised in portugal, but their families come from former portuguese colonies. in spain, between 2001 and 2016, some 3,594 people were recognized as stateless, most of whom were of sahrawi origins and migrated to spain. worldwide: 3.9+ million people stateless unhcr noted there are at least 3.9 million people in the world who are stateless. the real number is likely much higher, possibly around 10 million, considering that statistics for statelessness are available only for a third of all countries worldwide. what does it mean to be stateless? stateless people are not considered citizens of any country and thus are not assured access to rights linked to citizenship. these people often do not have access to basic rights such as being able to attend #foreign policy » how being stateless makes you poor comments feed alternate alternate alternate -- (button) toggle display of website navigation argument: how being stateless makes you poor how being stateless makes you poor... share: share on facebook share on twitter share on linkedin share on -- argument how being stateless makes you poor in today's world, a lack of citizenship isn't just a political problem — it's -- raised in damascus. he speaks with a distinct syrian accent, just like that of his many syrian friends. but khrtabeel is not like other syrians. he’s stateless. the first time khrtabeel, 30, grasped the magnitude of that word was in -- an estimated 10 to 15 million people around the world are stifled by the denial of privileges and protections that are afforded to citizens. the legal and political travails of stateless people are well known — many don’t have the right to vote, travel, own property, or move about freely. access to basic health care and education is sparse. but one of the most debilitating (and rarely acknowledged) effects of statelessness is chronic economic instability. without the legal right to work, the stateless find few avenues for upward mobility, leaving generation after generation to toil in poverty and obscurity — at the expense of both individuals and the states that host them. often lacking government-issued identification, stateless people are typically excluded from the formal labor market and relegated to unemployment or under-the-table work. as a result, the labor they must -- dangerous and exploitative: the persecuted rohingya minority in burma, for instance, have been forced into unpaid military conscription. the desperately poor parents of stateless hill tribe children in thailand have sold their kin into trafficking, ignorant of the slavery, prostitution, and abuse that await them. as khrtabeel’s story demonstrates, even stateless people who have identification suffer widespread societal discrimination that limits their ability to find stable employment. as it turns out, some of the most pernicious consequences of statelessness have little to do with official state policies or geopolitical considerations. more often it’s a matter, pure and simple, of discrimination at the hands of ordinary people. in 2011, the u.s. state department commissioned middlesex university professor brad blitz, a leading expert on statelessness, to undertake the first study aimed at quantifying the economic cost of being stateless. after investigating the livelihoods of 980 stateless, formerly stateless, and citizen households in kenya, bangladesh, slovenia, and sri lanka, blitz’s team concluded that statelessness decreases both household income and spending by 34 percent, and home ownership by 60 percent. -- situations of poverty,” said blitz. blitz warns that the refugee crisis will exacerbate statelessness: “these children who are in protracted situations of displacement need the help, need the education — and time matters.” -- africa. he was met only with rejection. finally, in 2012, khrtabeel found engineering work in erbil, the capital of iraqi kurdistan, where the stateless kurds could commiserate with his troubles. khrtabeel found the city uninspiring, but doubted he would find work elsewhere — so he stayed for three and a half years, until the encroaching terror -- discrimination plague him. “we know from existing research that to be stateless means that it’s harder to go to school” said laura van waas, co-director of the institute on statelessness and inclusion, an ngo based in the netherlands. “it’s harder to complete school and get a diploma. it’s harder to work in the legal, public sector. it’s harder or impossible -- contract.” although van waas assumes the economic disempowerment of stateless populations comes at a cost to national economies, she said it’s difficult to grasp the magnitude of damage done due lack of research. she’s right about that. currently there’s virtually no serious scholarly scrutiny of the toll statelessness takes on a country’s economy. without the right to legally work, the stateless do little to contribute to formal economies via employment, taxes, and discretionary spending. the drain of these destitute populations may manifest in little more than a dent in the economies of large countries. but for a small state like brunei, which has a population of under half a million and over 20,000 stateless people within its borders, awarding them citizenship could lead to a marked improvement in gdp. studies on naturalizing undocumented migrants in the u.s. seem to support this hypothesis. meanwhile, the stateless continue to dwell in the shadows — even in notoriously inclusive countries like canada, where multiculturalism is embraced as a way of life and where refugees have been welcomed with -- won’t take you because you’re black, or because you’re a woman,’ it would be all over the news, and that’d be the worst thing imaginable. but if you’re stateless and you’re born into a situation you have no control over, it’s ok to discriminate.” -- valiant aim, but most countries continue to neglect the “invisible people” within their borders, refusing to collect data, let alone assign government-issued i.d. only a few thousand stateless people across the world have identification cards acknowledging their status, according to statelessness researcher bronwen manby. the first step towards alleviating discrimination against non-citizens would be issuing widespread identification, thereby allowing them legal entry to the formal labor market — a move that would prove financially advantageous to both the stateless and the state. however, this assumes that states want to solve the problem. the worst -- sovereignty. even if widespread policy aimed at integrating the stateless into mainstream society is adopted, it will take decades to wipe out the prejudice that haunts people like gunster and khrtabeel. -- different place.” khrtabeel no longer sees his stateless status as a hindrance in the job market. now that he is safe in the netherlands, it’s a psychological issue he has to grapple with on his own. -- generation of our family [into the world] to suffer more.” in the photo, stateless kuwaiti men from the bidoon community sit around a fire in the ‘jungle’ migrant and refugee camp in calais, northern france, on february 19. mon, jul 20, 2020 statelessness in ukraine: new law offers fresh hope ukrainealert by eric fritz and kseniia karahiaur -- hide statelessness in ukraine: new law offers fresh hope almost thirty years since the collapse of the ussr, statelessness remains a significant issue in independent ukraine, but new legislation aims to make it easier for stateless residents to gain legal status. reuters/gleb garanich on july 18, a new law governing stateless determination procedures entered into force in ukraine. human rights advocates say the legislation, signed earlier in the week by ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy, could significantly expand access to social rights for thousands of stateless individuals in ukraine. the ukrainian government now has three months to pass bylaws and enact new policies to bring the facts on the ground into line with the new legislation. law 2335 is meant to bring ukraine into compliance with the provisions of the 1954 statelessness convention and the 1961 convention on the reduction of statelessness, both of which ukraine acceded to in 2013. in line with the aforementioned international treaties, ukrainian legislation will now define a stateless person as “someone who is not considered as a citizen by any state under the operation of its law.” this legislative change also introduces clear procedures for the determination of statelessness, while placing the burden on the state to establish that an individual is not a citizen of another country. meanwhile, the new law explicitly indicates the statelessness determination procedure as being available to persons not legally present in ukraine. this is a crucial aspect of the law because the vast majority of stateless persons in ukraine have lived in the country for many years, if not their entire lives. -- iframe: gform_ajax_frame_6 statelessness remains a massive challenge for the entire post-soviet region. upon the collapse of the soviet union, many individuals, especially elderly people, those living in isolated rural areas, or -- almost three decades since the soviet union ceased to exist, the true scale of the statelessness problem remains a subject of considerable debate. the last extensive data on statelessness in ukraine came via the country’s most recent nationwide census in 2001. this determined that there were 82,550 stateless persons present in the country at the time. there has not been another census since then. this extended lull means that current estimates of statelessness in ukraine are considered unreliable and vary wildly. the unhcr estimates that there are still more than 35,600 stateless persons in the country. however, in 2018 the world bank reported that there were an extraordinary 1.27 million undocumented persons living in ukraine, which would indicate a far larger stateless population than previously imagined. the murkiness surrounding the actual numbers of stateless people in today’s ukraine has only been exacerbated by the ongoing conflict with russia in the east of the country. many families with already flimsy -- children born in non-government controlled areas of ukraine over the past six years have been issued with birth certificates by the ukrainian government, which puts them at risk of statelessness as well. for these tens of thousands of people, the new legislation could prove a saving grace. -- while the introduction of new legislation is welcome, it will not act as a panacea for stateless persons and those at risk of statelessness in ukraine. iryna aleksieieva, a statelessness expert with the humanitarian ngo right to protection, suggests that the legal challenges are only half the battle facing ukraine. “we need to be mindful about identification efforts so that we can reach the people who most need to know about the legal changes,” she comments. “stateless people have typically been socially excluded for a long time. they are often elderly people without internet access. sometimes they are illiterate. stateless people need a helping hand and a bit of guidance to know how to exercise their right to obtain a legal identity.” -- for now, ukraine’s legislative changes at least present an opportunity for stateless persons to achieve legal status. they provide that, upon submission of their applications, applicants will be given a certificate establishing their legal presence in ukraine for the -- eric fritz is a project manager with right to protection based out of kyiv. kseniia karahiaur is a legal analyst with right to protection focusing on statelessness, also based in kyiv. further reading statelessness in ukraine: new law offers fresh hope statelessness in ukraine: new law offers fresh hope -- ukrainealert by peter dickinson conflict national security statelessness in ukraine: new law offers fresh hope statelessness in ukraine: new law offers fresh hope -- ukrainealert by oleksii reznikov conflict nuclear nonproliferation statelessness in ukraine: new law offers fresh hope statelessness in ukraine: new law offers fresh hope * us & canada stateless in africa: why 700,000 have their 'dreams ended' stateless in africa: why 700,000 have their 'dreams ended' (button) noclose -- final exams. however, he is one of the 700,000 stateless citizens in africa, which means he won't be able to finish his schooling. -- related * 'why being stateless ends my dreams' video, 00:02:07'why being stateless ends my dreams' published article stateless in kazakhstan: yerbol’s story european union supported programme ensuring every child has a legal identity -- identification number)”. so, how did yerbol become stateless? in 2002, zhamilya, her mother and sisters moved from uzbekistan to kazakhstan. as an ethnic kazakh, zhamilya planned to get registered as a repatriate. but the procedures -- kazakhstan/dinara salieva yerbol, 10, having tea with his friend and brother. yerbol says he feels embarrassed at school because he is oldest among his classmates. yerbol is one of the many stateless children in kazakhstan and missed several years of schooling because of issues with documents. -- the district police department. there, she saw a poster with information about the legal center of women's initiatives, ‘sana sezim’, an organization that has been supporting stateless people in kazakhstan since 2016. the organization works closely with unicef, unhcr and iom to prevent and support stateless children and their families -- while the documents were being prepared, the boy started school with the help of the department of education. sana sezim also helped zhamilya process all required documents to get a stateless person’s certificate, which in time opens the way for obtaining kazakh citizenship. -- suffering her son endured because of the mistakes made by adults. unicef and stateless children unicef is working to strengthen mechanisms to support and protect the -- every child’s right to a nationality. the coalition aims to expand and strengthen international cooperation to raise public awareness about stateless children, and to promote the right of every child to a nationality. #alternate alternate alternate isis cases raise a question: what does it mean to be stateless? (button) -- middle east|isis cases raise a question: what does it mean to be stateless? https://nyti.ms/2gi4er4 * -- continue reading the main story isis cases raise a question: what does it mean to be stateless? * -- the government says it is acting to protect the british public first. but a lawyer for ms. begum, who recently gave birth to a baby boy, said the move would render the british-born woman stateless. the dilemma of what to do with citizens of western countries who threw in their lot with the islamic state before it was largely ousted from syria has set off a debate over citizenship and the statelessness that might result from stripping some of them of their nationality. -- powerful message to those who turn against their own countries, legal experts warn of long-term problems if the stranded islamic state members end up stateless. “this is leaving people homeless without protection, and destroying any -- adviser for human rights watch. what is statelessness and how widespread is it? the united nations refugee agency defines a stateless person as someone who does not have the nationality of any country. some are born stateless because of gaps in nationality laws — in effect, they fall through the cracks. others become stateless as new nations emerge, or borders change. and some have their nationality revoked. it can mean a life in perpetual limbo, said david baluarte, an expert on statelessness and professor of law at washington and lee university. “they are constantly living in the shadows, potentially sought out by -- bangladesh last year.credit...adam dean for the new york times at least 10 million people globally are stateless, and most — more than 75 percent — are part of minority groups in the countries where they reside. -- people,” mr. baluarte said. the case against statelessness. since the end of world war ii — in part as a response to nazi germany’s stripping jews of their citizenship before rounding them up and shipping them to ghettos and then concentration camps — international law has codified protections for the stateless. two united nations conventions on statelessness, in 1954 and 1961, laid out basic principles of human rights for those without a nationality. they also sought to limit the deprivation of nationality in cases when it would make someone stateless. some 61 nations, including britain, are signatories. “that legal protection exists, so states that are stripping people of nationality and leaving them stateless are violating that law,” mr. baluarte said. -- the united states has its own precedent. in 1958, the supreme court ruled in trop v. dulles that it was unconstitutional to revoke citizenship and make someone stateless as a punishment for a crime. “citizenship is not a license that expires upon misbehavior,” the -- “civilized nations after world war ii saw how abusive the stripping of citizenship that would leave someone stateless was,” mr. baluarte said. “but we are bringing ourselves back to a place where we have forgotten how desperate the situation of statelessness was. and having this new wave of politically motivated expatriation is really troubling.” -- the home office said in a statement that mr. javid has the power to deprive people of their british citizenship where it would not render them stateless. the office did not comment on ms. begum’s case specifically, but the british authorities are reported to believe they can act against her because her mother has a passport from bangladesh. -- however, according to tasnime akunjee, a lawyer for ms. begum’s family, the young woman is not a citizen of bangladesh, and that country has said she will not be allowed entry. that would render her stateless. mr. clive of human rights watch said taking away citizenship “on the -- hackensack, n.j., in 1994. if ms. muthana joins the ranks of the stateless, said mr. baldwin, the human rights watch legal adviser, that would pose far more risk than bringing her home and investigating her involvement with the islamic state. “if they are stateless, where are they going to go?” he said. “no country has any obligation to take them. that is not the recipe for a stable government. it’s likely the recipe for more radicalization.” newsletter signup donate “we have a state”: confronting the statelessness of the rohingya people  june 3, 2019 blog post ana-sofia gonzalez “we have a state”: confronting the statelessness of the rohingya people -- blog post “we have a state”: confronting the statelessness of the rohingya people ana-sofia gonzalez -- blog post “we are not stateless. stop calling us that,” muhib ullah, leader of the rohingya civil society group arakan rohingya society for peace and human rights, said before the un human rights council last month. “we -- flee to bangladesh. the roots of the crisis, however, can be traced back several decades. the myanmar government’s refusal to offer the rohingya citizenship has rendered them effectively stateless, denied basic rights and protections. in fact, they are the largest stateless population in the world. this statelessness is a key factor perpetuating the conflict in myanmar to this day. the stateless status of the rohingya leaves them easily susceptible to discrimination. stateless persons typically cannot obtain legal documents, do not have access to education, healthcare, or employment, cannot participate in the political process, and do not enjoy freedom -- applications. today, myanmar’s laws leave the rohingya in stateless status despite the fact that they can trace their family roots back generations. previously some have enjoyed the right to citizenship and the right to vote and hold office. for these reasons, many rohingya reject the being considered stateless. to them the fact that myanmar is their state is clear. in order to address the root causes of the rohingya crisis appropriately, statelessness in particular, we must create a solution-oriented response: * citizenship must be granted and restored to the rohingya people. -- myanmar, as well as the un fact-finding mission on myanmar. statelessness remains at the heart of the rohingya crisis. the failure to effectively address this root cause has affected not only rohingya in myanmar but more than 1 million refugees who have fled to other