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THE PROBLEM OF STATELESSNESS (UNHCR



Subject: THE PROBLEM OF STATELESSNESS (UNHCR, 1995)

/* posted 7 Aug 6:00am 1997 by drunoo@xxxxxxxxxxxx in igc:reg.burma */
/* -----------------" The problem of statelessness "----------------- */

THE PROBLEM OF STATELESSNESS
(Excerpts from The State of the World's Refugees 1995, pp-67)

On 10 March 1993, a group of Khmer Rouge soldiers marched into the
Cambodian fishing village of Chong Kneas and opened fire, killing and
injuring more than 60 people of ethnic Vietnamese background. In the panic
which followed, more than 30,000 people from this minority group fled into
VietNam, while 5,000 more found themselves stranded on the Cambodian side
of the border. These displaced people and their ancestors have lived in
Cambodia for generations. They speak fluent Khmer and consider themselves
to be Cambodian citizens. But they are not recognized as such by the
Cambodian authorities, and have consequently been prevented from returning
to their villages. By mid-1995, there was still no solution in sight for
them.

The situation of Cambodia's ethnic Vietnamese population provides a graphic
example of an important but sometimes forgotten humanitarian issue: the
problem of statelessness. One consequence of an international system based
on the nation-state is the vital importance to citizenship. To be able to
reside in a country, to work, to vote, to carry a passport, and hence to be
able to leave or enter that state, citizenship is required. Both
substantively and symbolically, citizenship enables an individual to belong
to a society. It is for this reason that nationality has been recognized as
a human right, and the arbitrary deprivation of citizenship is prohibited
under international law.

Despite these legal provisions, a substantial but unknown number of people
are living in circumstances similar to those of the ethnic Vietnamese in
Cambodia, lacking citizenship and the rights associated with that status.
Significantly, while international human rights law acknowledge the right
to a nationality, it does not spell out the circumstances under which a
state must grant citizenship; each country remains sovereign in its ability
to establish nationality laws and to determine whether individuals are
recognized as citizens.

AN OBSTACLE TO SOLUTION

The problem of statelessness is related to the issue of human displacement
in two principal ways. First, statelessness can act as an obstacle in the
search for solutions to refugee problems. In a number of different
situations, countries of origin have refused to allow the return and
reintegration of refugees whose claim to citizenship has been rejected,
even if, like Cambodia's ethnic Vietnamese population, they were born and
bred in that state. Refugees who are preventing from repatriating in this
way may, of course, encounter even greater difficulties if no other country
is prepared to offer them long-term residence rights and the opportunity to
apply for citizenship.

Controversies over citizenship are currently impeding the search for
solutions in a number of countries around the world. In addition to the
Cambodian situation, difficulties have arisen with regard to the ethnic
Nepali refugees who have fled from Bhutan to Nepal, members of Kuwait's
Bidoon minority living in other Arab states, and a small number of ethnic
Chinese boat people who remain in Hong Kong. The details of these cases
differ substantially, and in each instance they are surrounded by complex
legal, factual and political disputes. What these situations have in common
is that the country of origin will not allow the people concerned to
return, citing lack of citizenship as the reason for their exclusion.

THE THREAT OF DISPLACEMENT

A second an perhaps even more important connection between statelessness
and the refugee problem is to be found in the threat of displacement and
expulsion which hangs over many people who are not recognized as citizens
of the countries to which they essentially belong. This threat derives less
from the simple absence of citizenship, however, and more from the policies
and prejudices which often motivate a state's decision to withhold
citizenship from a particular group of people.

When it occurs on a collective basis, statelessness is almost always an
indicator of underlying social and political tensions, involving minority
groups which are preceived by the majority community and the authorities
as different, disloyal or dangerous. Contemporary examples of this syndrome
include the Roma (Gypsy) minority in the Czech Republic, Myanmar's Muslim
minority, commonly known as Rohingyas,  and the large population of ethnic
Russians in Estonia and Latvial In the former Soviet states generally,
there is a particular risk that the resurgence of ethnic nationalism and
the introduction of new nationality laws might lead to large-scale
statelessness and mass population movements.

Recent developments in the former Soviet Union and the countries of Eastern
Europe, coupled with the simultaneous emergence of a proactive, preventive
and solution-oriented approach to the problem of human displacement, have
generated a new awareness of the plight of stateless people. It is now
widely accepted that the question of statelessness goes beyond the domestic
jurisdiction of states, given its important human rights implications, its
potentially damaging impact on inter-state relations and its prepensity to
create refugee problems.

In most situations, people become stateless not as a result of some
historical or legal quirk, but because a state has not learned to live with
or tolerate its minorities. Respecting the full spectrum of human rights -
which includes the right to a nationality - is essential if a society is to
live at peace with itself and in harmony with its neighbours.

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