“Everyone has the right to a nationality”

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The blog entries represent the views of the authors but not those of the Network, unless otherwise noted.

  • Moving Statelessness Forward on the International Human Rights Agenda

    14 May 2013

    The word “statelessness” had not yet entered my vocabulary when I first arrived in Thailand during the spring of 2005. I had come to conduct research on human trafficking, and I was under the false impression that everyone had nationality somewhere. At first I caught glimpses of the problem from Bangkok – murmurs of hill tribe women on Soi Cowboy in the red light district, offhand remarks about “illegal” indigenous groups that sent children south to work in resort towns such as Pattaya and Phuket.

  • Litigation, legal aid & law clinics

    7 May 2013

    To a large extent, the Statelessness Programme is a typical academic initiative and many of our activities are those traditionally associated with academia – i.e. they lie in the field of research, teaching and the wider dissemination of information. At the same time, by forming partnerships with a wide range of organisations, including through actively participating in the European Network on Statelessness, we are able to benefit from the direct interaction with different stakeholders.

  • Addressing the human insecurity of stateless people: Complimenting our legal advocacy with a development approach

    1 May 2013

    Since the beginning of the year I have been working on trying to explore the role that development and humanitarian organisations are or could be playing in alleviating the suffering of the stateless. While the strategy to secure citizenship for the stateless should remain a key concern, we have to accept that realizing this solution for some stateless populations is proving in reality to be a rather long term project.

  • Addressing Statelessness in the Western Balkans – ENS and WeBLAN Joint Workshop

    26 April 2013

    Praxis had the pleasure to organize a joint workshop of the European Network on Statelessness (ENS) and the Western Balkan Legal Aid Network (WeBLAN) on statelessness on 23 April in Belgrade. The event was organized with the support of UNHCR Representation in Serbia and the EU funded project “Best Practices for Roma Integration” (BPRI) implemented by ODIHR in the Western Balkans.

  • Protecting Stateless Palestinian Refugees – The EU Court of Justice opens a new chapter

    16 April 2013

    The European Network on Statelessness (ENS) advocates for the creation of statelessness-specific protection regimes all over Europe. Where such systems are in place, stateless persons are entitled to a protection status based only on the fact that they have no nationality. This model, however, is not the only protection path for stateless persons in a migratory situation.

  • Bringing legal ghosts out of the shadows – Welcoming a new UK statelessness determination procedure

    7 April 2013

    Back in November 2011 Asylum Aid and UNHCR published their joint study Mapping Statelessness in the United Kingdom. Over the course of a year we mapped the number and profile of stateless persons in the UK and sought to put a human face on their situation by conducting interviews across the country.

  • Roma statelessness in Italy – field research reveals long-awaited data

    3 April 2013

    The Italian Council for Refugees (CIR), with the support of Open Society Foundations, issued its study summarizing the results of the project “In the Sun – A survey on the phenomenon of statelessness among Roma communities living in Italy” in February 2013.

  • Europe’s Birth Registration Stumbling Blocks

    27 March 2013

    It is well-established that one of the best ways of preventing statelessness is by ensuring universal birth registration of all children, regardless of the status of their parents.

  • Innovations in Russian Legislation on Citizenship

    20 March 2013

    Against the backdrop of crazy laws and bills, that have been passed or that are being currently examined by the State Duma of the Russian Federation, the positive amendments that have been introduced into the Federal Law of the Russian Federation “On Citizenship of the Russian Federation” stand out, especially as they are directed at solving such long-standing issues. 

  • Debating the ‘right to citizenship’

    11 March 2013

    As part of a special programme of events to celebrate the European Year of the Citizen, the Maastricht Centre for Human Rights last week hosted a seminar entitled ‘The Right to Citizenship: Towards fuller implementation of Article 15 UDHR’.

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