There are two types of stateless people, there is de jure stateless people and de facto stateless people.
De jure stateless people are not considered to be a national by any state according to their laws, while de facto stateless people is someone outside of their country and is unwilling or unable to receive the protection of their country. A person can become stateless when their nationality is no longer valid because the nation does not exist any more and a completely new government gains power and excludes groups of people from being citizens or does not recognize them as one of them. Someone can become stateless if the country does not have the same laws for nationality for women and men. The women could give birth to a child and not be able the obtain the nationality of the father to give to the child. There is also state succession, when a territory is handed over to a different government and the people of the acquired territory can slip past and do not gain the new nationality and become stateless. Another way someone can become stateless is by unregistered birth, because birth certificates are used to document and determine someones nationality. And there are many examples of stateless people across the world. When the Soviet Union fell many of the former citizens did not have a nationality that was recognized, In Kenya Nubian people do not receive citizen rights. And in the case of Sudam Hussein he and his regime stripped the nationalities of Feili Kurds, which was later repealed in 2006.
There are groups and agreements to help reduce statelessness and help those who are stateless. There is the UN Refugee Agency, the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness of 1961 and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The convention set ground rules in order to reduce the chances of someone being stateless. Some of these included the right for a nation to grant nationality to any one with any reason and that someone born on a sea vessel or aircraft will be granted the nationality of the flag the craft is under.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that every person has the right to citizenship and that no one can have their citizenship stripped or denied to change citizenship.
Being stateless can cause many problems for those who are effected by it and it is best to reduce the chances of someone becoming stateless, either because of their birth or because of governments not recognizing the nationality of certain groups of people.
More on Statelessness
No comments:
Post a Comment