Below is a list of our ongoing initiatives, along with their brief descriptions. These initiatives address key gaps related to statelessness, covering areas such as financial inclusion, employment, prevention of childhood statelessness, and knowledge-building.
Statelessness is a deprivation of basic human rights
On the one hand, it may sound romantic to some for a person to be free from belonging to a state. In reality, rights derive from how a person legally belongs to any state. Without that belonging, the person is deprived of rights, even the most basic ones. This means serious harm to the person and, according to the U.S. Supreme Court, amounts to “a form of punishment more primitive than torture, for it destroys for the individual the political existence that was centuries in the development.” Given the arbitrary nature of how mass statelessness is caused, tied to irrationality of racism, sexism, and other forms of discrimination, the phenomenon undermines nation-state model of governance and the fundamental values on which it is supposed to be built.
Uncountable millions of people are stateless
The 1954 UN Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons contains a widely accepted definition of statelessness. Therein a stateless person is defined as someone “who is not considered as a national by any State under operation of its law.” The phrase “under operation of its law” is of key importance. It means that the concept of nationality is treated as a legal concept rather than a natural one. In other words, a person can factually, ancestrally, and circumstantially belong on a territory of a state, being rooted there, but unless the authorities in that state legally recognise that bond the person will effectively be stateless (unless they have that recognition from another state).
Anyone can be made stateless
Due to imperfections of the state system itself in guaranteeing stability, good governance, and non-discrimination, anyone anywhere can become stateless at any point of time. With political winds being unpredictable, no state can truly guarantee inviolability of national belonging to its members. Denationalisation for political dissent, and, more commonly, simply for being part of ethnic or religious minority, are the most common causes of mass statelessness. Twenty-four countries in the world do not allow women to pass on their nationality, generating another common cause.
There are also various sub-citizenships wherein a state may recognise a bond between itself and its members but may selectively deny access to equal rights that are essential to defining citizenship/nationality. A person without such rights, being a “national” in name only, is very likely de facto stateless.
