Legal briefing: Statelessness and the right to respect for private and family life October 2024 (including the right to facilitated naturalisation and to receive identity papers).11 Other rights, however, are conferred on stateless persons depending on whether an individual is “lawfully in”, “lawfully staying in” or “habitually resident” in the territory of a State party (e.g. the right to work, economic and social rights including housing, education, and social security, freedom of movement, and protection from expulsion).12 As States cannot meet these obligations towards stateless persons without a mechanism to identify who on their territory is stateless, the obligation to identify and determine statelessness is implicit in the 1954 Convention.13 The 1961 Convention obliges States to contribute to the reduction of statelessness by establishing safeguards against statelessness, including in the context of acquisition and deprivation of nationality.14 In addition to these instruments, several States also have obligations to prevent and reduce statelessness in line with the 1997 European Convention on Nationality, the 2006 Convention on the Avoidance of Statelessness in Relation to State Succession, and other international human rights instruments.15 This legal briefing will analyse States’ obligations to protect the right to respect for private and family life of stateless persons. Interpreting that right should not be done in isolation and must take into account the regional and international instruments the State is a party to.16 Article 53 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (CFR) states that “[n]othing in this Charter shall be interpreted as restricting or adversely affecting human rights and fundamental freedoms as recognised, in their respective fields of application, by Union law and international law and by international agreements to which the Union or all the Member States are party”. Article 53 CFR can therefore be relied upon in cases before the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) to recall 11 1954 Convention, Articles 4 (freedom of religion), 12 (personal status), 13 (property), 16(1) (access to courts), 20 (rationing), 22 (public education), 25 (administrative assistance), 27 (the right to identity papers) 32 (facilitated naturalisation). See UNHCR, Handbook on Protection of Stateless Persons, 30 June 2014, paragraphs 132-133. 12 UNHCR, Handbook on Protection of Stateless Persons, 30 June 2014, paragraphs 132-139; 1954 Convention, Chapters II-V. 13 UNHCR, Statelessness Determination Procedures and the Status of Stateless Persons (“Geneva Conclusions”) (2010); Gyulai, G. ‘The determination of statelessness and the establishment of a statelessness-specific protection regime’, in Edwards, A. & Waas, L. (eds) Nationality and Statelessness under International Law, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (2014), pp. 116-117. This obligation has been reiterated by UNHCR and the UN Human Rights Committee. The European Court of Human Rights has also noted that Contracting States have an obligation to provide an effective and accessible procedure enabling the applicant to have the issue of their status determined with due regard to their privatelife interests under Article 8 ECHR (see below). 14 Article 8 of the 1961 Convention. 15 For example, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (Article 24.3), the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (Articles 2.2 and 3), the Convention of the Rights of the Child (Articles 2, 3, 7 and 8), the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (Article 9), the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (Article 5(d)(iii)), the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, the Convention on the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (Article 18), and the Universal Declaration on Human Rights (Article 15). 16 Article 31 of the 1965 Vienna Convention on Law of Treaties stipulates that treaties need continuous contextual interpretation. Furthermore, with their initial ratification of the treaty, States accept that the treaty bodies play a key role in the interpretation of human rights treaties. 5