9. The Institute, the ENS and the ICI are concerned that although a number of Members of the
Refugee Appeals Tribunal have received a one-day training session on statelessnessxi and in
June 2013, around 40 officials from across the relevant State agencies received training,
delivered through the Irish office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), there
is no mechanism for ensuring that legislators, policy makers, law enforcement officers and
decision makers in the Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service, the Office of the Refugee
Applications Commissioner and the Refugee Appeals Tribunal as well as judges in the Irish
superior courts receive regular training on the issue of statelessness.
10. Moreover, the failure to introduce a statelessness determination procedure is in conflict with
Ireland’s obligations under the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons. It
is submitted that the absence of a procedure also hampers Ireland’s ability to realise its
commitment to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, Article 7 of which obliges States
that are parties to the Convention to guarantee children’s “right to acquire a nationality”. As
set out in more detail in Section 4 below, children are not adequately protected against
statelessness in Ireland, which is further problematic in light of Ireland’s obligations under the
1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness.
Lack of Statelessness Determination Procedure
11. As Ireland has a dualist system, the six core human rights treaties Ireland is party to, namely
the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,
the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights,
the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination,
the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women,
the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and
the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
are not directly enforceable. In order to become part of the national law, the provisions of
these treaties, like the provisions of the statelessness conventions, would have to be
implemented through national legislation. To date, very few elements of international human
rights instruments have been incorporated in Irish law, thus making them effectively
unenforceable in the Irish courts. Implementing legislation ensuring the enforceability of both
the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons and the 1961 Convention on
the Reduction of Statelessness, in particular a national statelessness determination
procedure, is lacking.
12. The ICI, the Institute and the ENS submit that while the 1954 Convention does not explicitly
prescribe how statelessness should be determined, it does establish standards of treatment
which can only be applied by States if they can establish who the beneficiaries of such
treatment are.
13. Moreover, the position of stateless persons who are habitually and long-term resident in a
country, including those who were born there, is distinct. It has been argued that they are in
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