The Campaign to
End Statelessness
October – December 2020 Update
#IBelong
Join us in our Campaign to End Statelessness
Mobilizing Governments and Civil Society
On 10 November, the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation
hosted a virtual event to launch the Atlas of the
Stateless, a report which brings together a series of
new short essays on statelessness covering different
regions and themes. The launch event can be
watched here.
On 29 December, the UN Human Rights Committee
found that the Netherlands violated a child’s rights
by registering him as “nationality unknown”, as this
left him unable under Dutch law to be recognized
as stateless and given protection as a stateless
child. It is the Committee’s first decision on the right
of a child to acquire a nationality. “States have the
responsibility to ensure that stateless children under
their jurisdiction who have no possibility to acquire
any other nationality are not left without legal
protection,” said committee member Shuichi Furuya.
On 10 December, Human Rights Day, the Institute
on Statelessness and Inclusion (ISI) officially
launched the ISI Database on Statelessness and
Human Rights. The database offers easy access
to recommendations relating to statelessness and
the right to a nationality issued to States by the UN
human rights system. The new database allows
the user to compare and analyze the information it
contains using different filters such as country, UN
body and theme. The event launching the database
can be watched here.
On 7 November, the Consolidated Action Plan of
the International Conference on the Great Lakes
Region (ICGLR) on the Eradication of Statelessness
(2017-2024) was validated during a regional interministerial committee meeting. The action plan adds
a new strategic objective on access to proof of legal
identity for persons at risk of statelessness, including
refugees in protracted circumstances. This step is
in line with a pledge made by the ICGLR at the 2019
High-Level Segment on Statelessness.
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