Christmas Blog

Festive greetings to all

Thank you for following ENS blog updates in 2021. We’ll be taking a short break and are resuming our blog in January. Meanwhile, we wish you all the…
/ ENS Team
statefree Blog

Battling statelessness as a community

Have you ever asked yourself if you are worthy? Am I worthy of love, worthy of this job, worthy of promotion? Am I worthy of joy? Am I worthy of…
/ Christiana Bukalo, Co-founder of Statefree & Expert by experience
Image by Omar Lopez. Blog

Are parents of foundlings really “unknown”? - Avoiding statelessness under international nationality law

In popular understanding around the world, “foundlings” are often imagined as abandoned babies found outside churches. In practice, this limited…
/ Mai Kaneko-Iwase, PhD (Law), Researcher, Faculty of Law, Maastricht University, the Netherlands*
Assam North East, India, Harvesting, Rural women workers are plucking tender tea shoots in tea gardens Blog

Statelessness in the Asia Pacific: The birth of Nationality for All

With the increase in cases of statelessness in the Asia Pacific region and the impact of COVID-19 on stateless persons, Statelessness Network Asia…
/ Subin Mulmi, Executive Director, Nationality for All (NFA)
International Roma Women's Conference Blog

Spotlighting Romani women’s activism and role in addressing statelessness in Europe

This blog is part of a collaboration between the European Network on Statelessness (ENS) and Romani women activists. Here, we want to draw attention…
/ Nina Murray, Michelle Van Burik, Sonja Barbul, Ina Majka, Brisilda Taco, Alison Huyghe and Tamara Smith
The Freedom Monument, Riga, Latvia. Blog

“Non-Citizens” of the Baltics: Common Misconceptions explained

To this day, there are approximately 300,000 non-citizens in the Baltics, in Estonia and Latvia. In contrast to Estonia and Latvia, Lithuania does…
/ By a Latvian non-citizen
Tindouf Blog

Without a nationality but not stateless: the recent judgment of the Swiss Federal Supreme Court in a case concerning the nationality status of a refugee originating from Western Sahara

In August 2021, the Swiss Supreme Federal Court, the highest judicial authority in Switzerland, issued a decision concerning the nationality status…
/ Cecilia Manzotti – PhD candidate, University of Sussex
Levi Meir Clancy Blog

Expert opinion: How the Netherlands, France and the UK are leaving children stranded at risk of statelessness in Iraq and Syria

Thousands of children associated with alleged ‘foreign fighters’ have been detained in Iraq and Syria since the territorial fall of the Islamic State…
/ Professor RenÊ DeGroot (Professor emeritus, Maastricht University), Philomène Franssen (Independent consultant), Alison Harvey (Barrister at No5 Chambers) and Dr Rachel Pougnet (University of Bristol)
ARC Blog

Understanding Statelessness through Country of Origin Information (COI)

Country of Origin Information (COI) is an important element in refugee status determination procedures, as it helps to evaluate whether there is a…
/ Stephanie Huber, Director of Asylum Research Centre (ARC) Foundation and Nina Murray, Head of Policy and Research, The European Network on Statelessness
Oct 2021– Melanie from UNHCR’s Geneva Office. Blog

Looking Back on 6 Years at the Helm of UNHCR’s Statelessness Section

After six years as the Chief of the Statelessness Section at UNHCR, Melanie Khanna reflects on the global efforts to end statelessness, tracing the…
/ Melanie Khanna, Outgoing Chief of the Statelessness Section at UNHCR
 LGBTQ+ families, surrogacy and the legal identity of unsanctioned babies Blog

The Statelessness Case Law Database: LGBTQ+ families, surrogacy and the legal identity of unsanctioned babies

The new ENS Statelessness Case Law Database offers a lens through which we can observe how European laws deal with the reality of statelessness. In…
/ Katja Swider ENS Member, Assistant Professor of Migration Law at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
fguszrt Blog

We need to talk about the problem of citizenship

For the most part, the contemporary world is centred on the assumption that everyone has some form of citizenship. This creates problems for people…
/ Tendayi Bloom, Lecturer in Politics and International Studies, University of Birmingham, UK. Lindsey Kingston, Associate Professor of International Human Rights, Webster University, USA. Heather Steele, Deputy Academic Lead, Forum for Global Challenges