Protecting Stateless Persons

In Protecting Stateless Persons: The Implementation of the Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons across EU States, Katia Bianchini offers a study of legislation, case-law and decision-making concerning the protection of stateless persons in ten EU Member States.

International Refugee Law and the Protection of Stateless Persons examines the extent to which the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees protectsde jure stateless persons. While de jure stateless persons are clearly protected by the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, this book seeks to explore the extent to which such persons are also entitled to refugee status. The questions addressed include the following: When is a person 'without a nationality' for the purpose of the 1951 Refugee Convention? What constitutes one's country of former habitual residence as a proxy to one's country of nationality? When does being stateless give rise to a well-founded fear of persecution for reasons specified in the 1951 Refugee Convention and/or UNHCR mandate? What are the circumstances under which statelessness constitutes persecution or inhuman or degrading treatment? How are courts assessing individual risk or threat to stateless persons? The book draws on historical and contemporary interpretation of international law based on the travaux préparatoires to the 1951 Refugee Convention and its antecedents, academic writing, UNHCR policy and legal documents, UN Human Rights Council resolutions, UN Human Rights Committee general comments, UN Secretary General reports, and UN General Assembly resolutions. It is also based on original comparative analysis of existing jurisprudence worldwide relating to claims to refugee status based on or around statelessness. By examining statelessness through the prism of international refugee law, this book fills a critical gap in existing scholarship.

This book identifies the rights of stateless people and outlines the major legal obstacles preventing the eradication of statelessness.

Understanding Statelessness offers a comprehensive, in-depth examination of statelessness. The volume presents the theoretical, legal and political concept of statelessness through the work of leading critical thinkers in this area. They offer a critique of the existing framework through detailed and theoretically-based scrutiny of challenging contexts of statelessness in the real world and suggest ways forward. The volume is divided into three parts. The first, ‘Defining Statelessness’, features chapters exploring conceptual issues in the definition of statelessness. The second, ‘Living Statelessness’, uses case studies of statelessness contexts from States across global regions to explore the diversity of contemporary lived realities of statelessness and to interrogate standard theoretical presentations. ‘Theorising Statelessness’, the final part, approaches the theorisation of statelessness from a variety of theoretical perspectives, building upon the earlier sections. All the chapters come together to suggest a rethinking of how we approach statelessness. They raise questions and seek answers with a view to contributing to the development of a theoretical approach which can support more just policy development. Throughout the volume, readers are encouraged to connect theoretical concepts, real-world accounts and challenging analyses. The result is a rich and cohesive volume which acts as both a state-of-the-art statement on statelessness research and a call to action for future work in the field. It will be of great interest to graduates and scholars of political theory, human rights, law and international development, as well as those looking for new approaches to thinking about statelessness.

The essays selected and reproduced in this volume explore how international refugee law is dynamic and constantly evolving. From an instrument designed to protect mostly those civilians fleeing the worse excesses of World War II, the 1951 Refugee Convention has developed into a set of principles, customary rules, and values that are now firmly embedded in the human rights framework, and are applicable to a far broader range of refugees. In addition, international refugee law has been affected by international humanitarian law and international criminal law (and vice versa). Thus, there is a reinforcing dynamic in the development of these complementary areas of law. At the same time, in recent decades states have shown a renewed interest in managing migration, thereby raising issues of how to reconcile such interests with refugee protection principles. In addition, the emergence of concepts of participation and responsibility to protect promise to have an impact on international refugee law.

Since the 1990s, interest in statelessness has been steadily increasing within academia, among governments, at the UN, and among civil society organizations. Research projects, mapping studies, and doctrinal discussions have helped to clarify the challenges faced, as well as what is at stake. This has led to a fresh sense of purpose in addressing the issue. Spurred on by the UNHCR-led #IBelong Campaign to End Statelessness by 2024, there is a growing international movement engaged in finding solutions. Making meaningful progress towards this goal demands a new and more ambitious approach, one that moves beyond stock-taking to inspire solutions. As Volker Tuerk outlines in his introduction to this ground-breaking publication: The global debates have moved beyond the need to explain the problem and its causes and consequences. The time has come to accelerate the momentum to implement durable solutions effectively. The essays collected in this edited volume all approach statelessness from a solutions perspective, looking at what is being done, and what more can be done, to address this issue. The first part of the book has a thematic focus, exploring perspectives, tools, and techniques for solving statelessness across different countries and regions. Chapters in the second part each have a regional focus, exploring region-specific challenges, developments, and innovations set against the backdrop of the broader context of a global campaign to solve statelessness. With contributions from both scholars and practitioners, this book will be of interest to anyone engaged in studying or implementing solutions for statelessness, including researchers, government policy-makers, staff of international or regional inter-governmental bodies and UN agencies, grass-roots and international civil society organizations, legal practitioners, and advanced-level students. [Subject: Human Rights Law, Statelessness, Politics]

Introduction -- Africa -- Americas -- Asia and the Pacific -- Europe -- Middle East and North Africa (MENA) -- Introduction -- The right of every child to a nationality -- Migration, displacement and childhood statelessness -- The sustainable development agenda and childhood statelessness -- Safeguards against childhood statelessness -- Litigation and legal assistance to address childhood statelessness -- Mobilising to address childhood statelessness

International refugee law anticipates state conduct in relation to nationality, statelessness, and protection. Refugee status under the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees 1951 and regional and domestic instruments referring to it can be fully understood only against the background of international laws regarding nationality, statelessness, and the consequences of national status or the lack of it. In this significant addition to the literature a leading practitioner in these fields examines, in the light of international law, key issues regarding refugee status including identification of 'the country of his nationality', concepts of 'effective nationality', and the inclusion within 'persecution' of a range of acts or omissions focused on nationality.