Thematic Focus: Statelessness

Announcements:

1. EUDO Citizenship/UNHCR Database on Protection against Statelessness in Europe was launched on 8 March 2013.  Here's the description:

[The database] includes information on the extent to which citizenship laws in 36 European states provide sufficient protection against statelessness, in light of the most important international standards, such as the 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons and the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. The database is organized around a comprehensive typology of modes of protection against statelessness which outlines, in a systematic way, 17 categories of persons that are at risk of being or becoming stateless. The typology of modes of protection against statelessness follows the logic of a more general typology on the modes of acquisition of citizenship and modes of loss of citizenship, as developed by the EUDO Citizenship Observatory.

This very impressive endeavor was undertaken by EUDO Citizenship, UNHCR and Maastricht University.

2. The theme of the 2013 EXCOM Conclusion on International Protection will be on civil registration, which will incorporate birth registration.

Publications/Resources:

Adopting the Stateless (SSRN, Feb. 2013) [text]
- "This article proposes a nexus of statelessness and intercountry adoption where legislation is put forward to adopt stateless individuals, particularly children. This article will analyze pending legislation for the adoption of North Korean stateless persons and recommend legislation to address broader issues of statelessness."

Background Note on Gender Equality, Nationality Laws and Statelessness (UNHCR, updated March 2013) [text]
- Reviews laws in 29 countries which do not allow women to confer nationality to their children.

Debating the 'Right to Citizenship' (ENS Blog, March 2013) [text]
- Comment re. recent seminar on "The Right to Citizenship: Towards fuller implementation of Article 15 UDHR," Maastricht, 7 March 2013.

Lost in the Forest: Stateless Children in Borneo’s Palm Oil Industry (Pulitzer Center, Jan. 2013) [access]
- Video report.

No Residence, No Rights (ENS Blog, March 2013) [text]
- Focuses on Serbia.

Statelessness and Citizenship: Camps and the Creation of 'Political Space', Oxford, 20 Feb. 2013 [access]
- Podcast of this seminar now available.

Tagged Publications and Web Sites/Tools.