Stateless or nationality unknown In this blog I want to look at what it means to be stateless or of nationality unknown in the Netherlands. More than 4,000 stateless people are currently living in the Netherlands. In addition, another 80,000 people are registered as ‘nationality unknown’. The Dutch government gives an individual the label ‘nationality unknown’ for a variety of …
Statelessness 10 million people are currently stateless and many more are at risk of statelessness. Article 1(1) of the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons defines a stateless person as: “a person who is not considered as a national by any State under the operation of its law”. A lot is written about statelessness and stateless people …
What is the Abidjan Declaration on the eradication of statelessness? The Abidjan Declaration was adopted in February 2015 by the Member States of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), to support UNHCR’s global campaign to end statelessness by 2024. It was endorsed by the Summit of ECOWAS Heads of State and Governments in Accra, Ghana on 19 May …
In this post I examine the issue of statelessness in Côte d’Ivoire. I argue that the country needs to move on from the discriminatory treatment of stateless and undocumented people within its borders, especially children. Côte d’Ivoire also needs to take steps to fulfil the commitments it has made to eliminate statelessness under international law. Forced and voluntary migration …
Millions at risk of becoming stateless in Assam Province After 30 July 2018 the status of millions in Assam Province could change overnight. Al-Jazeera, the Hindu newspaper and The Independent , amongst others, have recently featured stories about the five million people at risk of becoming stateless in Assam Province, India, as they are now required to prove that they …
In its recent judgment Hoti v Croatia the European Court of Human Rights considered what it means for the Applicant to be stateless and without access to an effective and accessible procedure in the host state to obtain residency and legal status. Background to the claim in Hoti v Croatia Mr Hoti, the Applicant, moved to Croatia in the 1980s as a teenager …
In my earlier post,I discussed the domestic and international legal provisions on voting and voter registration in Kenya. In this post, I delve deeper and look at the barriers facing minority communities in Kenya in evidencing their Kenyan citizenship. My focus is on the experiences of evidencing citizenship for Kenyan-Somalis and the Nubian Community in Kenya. Kenya’s Somali Ethnic Group …
In this blog I tend to examine the legal aspects of identity and of how it impacts groups and individuals. But I have noticed recently a lot of chatter about blockchain technology and its potential uses in relation to legal identity and for identity documents. Being the kind of lawyer that is not that technically savvy, I want to delve …
The recent elections in Kenya have been widely reported, especially in light of the allegations of fraud and hacking. But I want to consider them from the point of view of voter eligibility in Kenya, which plays into the bigger issue of ID cards and identity in Kenya. The domestic and the international legal context are both relevant. Domestic law …
Before the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and SDG 16.9 there were the Millennium Development Goals (“MDGs”). They did not strictly address identity or legal identity, but the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) did underline the urgency for establishing adequate civil registration systems. For example, six of the eight MDGs rely on accurate estimates of fertility, mortality and causes of death data …
