Statelessness Working Paper Series No. 2016/06 The stateless typically are not free-floating, deracinated individuals, moving aimlessly around the globe. They are usually people settled in particular societies, albeit lacking legal recognition of and appropriate protection for their status as residents.36 In practical terms, recognition as actors who have the status of rights-bearers in the community that is denied to stateless persons. Alienation from the political community is an important aspect of the harm of statelessness, and it should as such be taken seriously in our policy responses to statelessness. Taking seriously the alienation that stateless persons face in relation to the wider community will mean making sure that the voices of stateless persons are heard. Legal recognition of statelessness, facilitating access to rights of residence and, where appropriate, fast-tracked access to citizenship are all measures that can be taken to reduce the institutional alienation faced by stateless persons. Engaging with alienation must also involve taking steps to address the more informal discrimination and marginalisation that stateless persons often face. It is not easy to stop people being seen as ‘outsiders’, but a wider understanding of statelessness amongst the general public would certainly be helpful here. Although statelessness is clearly a human rights concern, it is also a matter of being recognised as an actor with a status that merits rights in the first instance. Those denied a nationality are not only denied access to rights, but are also denied their status as equal persons in the political community. As such, when we talk about the right to a nationality as ‘the right to have rights’, it is important to bear in mind the two-fold harm of statelessness as it can be understood through a reading of Arendt. ‘The right to have rights’ is not only the right to access human rights, but the right to equal participation as the member of a community who is ascribed rights in the first instance. 4. Conclusion I have explicated Arendt’s understanding of the harms of statelessness, which are the lack of human rights protection and the alienation from the political community, and demonstrated their enduring relevance. Given their enduring relevance, we should take seriously Arendt’s conceptualisation of the right to a nationality, or ‘the right to have rights’, as being concerned not only with accessing other human rights, but moreover with the significance of one’s status as an equal, rights-deserving member of the political community. The existing discourse surrounding stateless persons often makes reference to the ‘right to have rights’, but a fuller understanding of the harm of statelessness will help us to better understand the plight faced by stateless persons, and how we can best respond to it. Understanding that stateless persons, in that they are not recognised as members of the political community, are alienated from it, is an important step forwards. Understandings which not only address statelessness as an issue of access to human rights, but moreover as an issue of alienation and marginalisation, will allow us to design policy responses which address this under-appreciated aspect of statelessness. 36 Gibney, ‘Statelessness and the Right to Citizenship’, 50. 5