Fifty Years In Limbo: The Plight of the World’s Stateless People

The Plight of the World’s Stateless People 10/23/2003

Nine million people live in countries where they are not considered to be nationals. This status denies many of them access to legal protection or their rights to health care and education. Furthermore, just a single officer at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) carries out the UN’s mandate to protect the world’s stateless people.

Their little-known plight was described by one man, made stateless under Burmese law and forcibly displaced to Bangladesh, who told Refugees International, "We want to stay in Burma, but we want to live as human beings there. We would like to raise our children as human beings in this world." The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, signed by almost every nation, states that, “Everyone has the right to a nationality. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality, nor denied the right to change his nationality.”

In essence, nationality, or citizenship, is the right to have rights. It provides a sense of belonging and identity, entitles an individual to state protection, and provides a legal basis for many civil and political rights. In many situations, nationality enables people to find employment, utilize public services, participate in the political process, and have access to the judicial system.

Individuals denied these rights face many hardships.The UN’s 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, and the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness serve as the reference points for international consensus on principles relating to the problem of statelessness. Originally intended as a Protocol to the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, the 1954 Convention was adopted to cover those stateless persons who are not refugees and who are not, therefore, covered by the 1951 Convention. Now, on the eve of the 50th anniversary of the Convention, the growing gap between rights and reality must be closed.

The Scope of the Problem“The problem is severe. No region hasn’t faced it,” says Carol Batchelor, Senior Legal Officer for Statelessness of the UNHCR. Stateless persons can fall into any of the agency’s four reporting categories: refugees, asylum seekers, internally displaced persons and ‘others of concern.’ Informal information gathering raises further questions regarding the criteria for determining whether a given individual is identified as a confirmed case, at risk, or simply appears to be stateless. Non-citizens may be identified as such by the 1954 Convention, but for political reasons they are not. “And that’s just the tip of the iceberg”, says the UN’s Ms. Batchelor.

A much-awaited survey to examine the problem was begun by UNHCR in April, and about a third of states have responded to date. Statelessness can occur as a result of several factors that include, but are not limited to, differences in the laws of two countries, transfer of territory, laws relating to marriage and the registration of births, the expulsion of people from territory, the practice of basing nationality solely on descent, often only of the father, and renunciation of nationality (without prior acquisition of another nationality).

Deprivation of citizenship is often used as a means of discriminating against populations considered undesirable due to race or ethnicity. The impact is particularly acute among children of parents of mixed origin, or who are born in a country other than their parents’ country of origin. Populations at RiskProblems of statelessness, including both refugees and non-refugees, have been seen in relation to individuals from the former Soviet bloc, some of Thailand’s ethnic groups, Bhutanese refugees, Muslim minorities in Burma and Sri Lanka, Palestinians, Europe’s Roma, the Bidoon in Kuwait and Bahrain, specific cases arising in conflict situations in the Horn of Africa including the Somali Bantu, ethnic minorities such as the Batwa ‘Pygmy’ and Banyamulenge of the Great Lakes Region of Africa, some Kurdish populations, numbers of Arab Shiites, Mesketians, and Zimbabweans of Indian descent or with links to Malawi and Mozambique.

One case example that highlights the difficulties faced by stateless individuals is the Muslim Rohingya people of Burma’s Arakan State. They are wanted neither in Burma nor in neighboring Bangladesh. They are stateless under Burma’s 1982 Citizenship Law and are subject to severe restrictions of movement, forced labor, land confiscation, and arbitrary taxation. In 1991 and 1992, about 250,000 of them crossed the border into neighboring Bangladesh. Although many of these refugees have since then been repatriated to Burma, there are still about 21,500 refugees living in two camps in southern Bangladesh. The refugees are completely dependent on UN and aid agencies for food.

In addition, an estimated 100,000 Rohingya are living illegally in Bangladesh without access to protection or humanitarian assistance. By stepping up repatriation efforts and reducing assistance to refugees, UNHCR has created an environment in which protection for the Rohingya is virtually untenable. Methods of coercion which refugees reported to RI include a reduction in certain basic entitlements, including food, withholding of medical services or pharmaceuticals, forced relocation within the camps to poorer housing, beatings, and, most commonly, threats of and actual jail sentences. Mohammad, a father of six in his thirties, was asked to agree to repatriate by camp officials in the presence of UNHCR. When he told UNHCR he did not want to return, he alleges that the camp authorities later beat and tortured him until he fell unconscious. He was then sent to jail on false charges for more than two years. UNHCR, aware of his situation, was unable to help him. Now that Mohammad is out of jail, he faces the same predicament. Already the camp leader has threatened him with another jail sentence if he does not agree to repatriate. “I have only two choices: I go to jail, or I go back to Burma. Going to jail is better than going to Burma,” he stated. Note: For more information on the plight of the Rohingya, please see the following articles on the RI website:
Forgotten People: The Rohingyas of Burma
Burmese Rohingya in Bangladesh Face an Uncertain Future
Lack of Protection Plagues Burma's Rohingya Refugees in Bangladesh

Closing the GapUltimately, the problems of statelessness and disputed nationality can only be addressed by states themselves. Accession to the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons is important because it sets the framework for the standard of treatment of stateless persons. To date, only 55 States have ratified the 1954 Convention.

Other instruments providing guidance include the 1957 Convention on the Nationality of Married Women, the 1966 Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the 1979 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child. As there were only 17 States Parties to the 1961 Convention in the early 1990s, the work of UNHCR remained fairly limited until 1996, when the UN General Assembly charged the Office with a broadened role. Subsequently, UNHCR has provided advice and assistance to governments and individuals in nationality matters.

A 2001 evaluation suggested that UNHCR had done little to exercise the latter mandate, partially because of its preoccupation with refugees, but Ms. Batchelor believes the UN has become more operational through developing written materials, raising awareness of the problem internally and training 1,400 staff since 1995, providing state briefings, and working on difficult cases such as the Crimean Tatars of the Ukraine. Ideally, UN resources would match the needs of the world’s estimated 9 million stateless people. In reality, there is one senior legal officer for stateless people supported by a Junior Professional Officer and an occasional temporary assistant or consultant.

There is no devoted budget line, so if specific needs are identified for stateless operations, funds must be located from resources in general accounts or by special contributions from donors. Funds for training, awareness-raising materials, development of policy guidelines, publications, missions, and translation are secured on an annual basis from the Department of International Protection. Funds for operations come from the Agency’s Regional Bureaus. This year the European Commission Humanitarian Aid Office (ECHO) helped with a specific project. The staffing issue, combined with budget constraints, limits the number of field missions that can be undertaken to evaluate situations of concern.

Each new conflict threatens to force more people into the position of being stateless. In recent months, for example, individuals returning to Iraq faced difficulties replacing documentation. They had been outside of the country for so long that their documents had expired, and there are few, if any ways, to verify their status. Much greater efforts are needed to address current problems and prevent the numbers of stateless people from growing in the future.Refugees

International recommends that:States:

Minimize the negative impacts of statelessness by allowing greater access to rights and entitlements.

Give greater weight to the vulnerability created by uncertain nationality or statelessness in refugee status determination procedures.

undertake interstate dialogue to prevent unwanted or unknown compounding effects of legislation.

Accede to and implement the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons and the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness.

The United Nations, international, and local human rights and humanitarian agencies:

• Improve capacities in the area of statelessness.
• Campaign for ratification of the 1954 and 1961 Conventions.
• Ensure that the UNHCR more actively applies its mandate on statelessness and nationality; devotes more financial and staff resources to work on statelessness and nationality issues; and collaborates with other organizations, particularly human rights organizations.
• Press the U.N. High Commissioner on Human Rights to pursue the issue of statelessness and discriminatory norms by which states determine citizenship. Donor governments:
  Demand state action and protection on behalf of stateless populations and provide new funding to support such endeavors.

Donor governments:

• Demand state action and protection on behalf of stateless populations and provide new funding to support such endeavors.