Statelessness Working Paper Series 2016/04 applications of rights; therefore, it is citizenship that will play a fundamental role in facilitating the Rohingya’s pursuit of the right to health.76 5.3 Legal barriers to the “right to health” (ii): Amending the 1982 Citizenship Law Having discussed the importance of legal recognition found in citizenship, the practicalities of changing the 1982 Law must be examined. In short, the 1982 Citizenship Law needs to be repealed, or at least significantly amended, to ensure the Rohingya are acknowledged as an eligible ethnic group for citizenship.77 Although rescinding the 1982 Citizenship Law sounds like a simple solution in the abstract, in reality it is far more complex. The first barrier to repealing the 1982 Citizenship Law is the newly drafted Rakhine State Action Plan, serving as a general blueprint for post-conflict reconstruction in Myanmar.78 Part IV of the plan entitled ‘Citizenship assessment of Bengalis’ promotes measures to continue Myanmar’s assessment of citizenship through the criteria enshrined in the 1982 Citizenship Law; thereby halting any sense of amending the discriminatory nature of this Act. Provision 7.1 of Part IV of The Rakhine State Action Plan reveals that the new assessment process will assign ‘Bengalis’ (Rohingya) into three different categories: those previously recorded in registers, those not recorded previously but willing to go through the assessment process according to Myanmar’s existing laws, and those who reject the definition in the existing law. It goes on to state in provision 9 of the Action Plan that authorities will ‘deal with the Bengalis’ who reject the pejorative term of Bengali, as opposed to Rohingya, in the existing law. The signification of the term ‘deal with’ remains unknown.79 The troubling Rakhine Action Plan is reflective of Myanmar’s ardent intent to keep the discriminatory 1982 Citizenship Act active and enshrine statelessness as a ‘national policy.’80 5.4 Legal solutions to protect the “right to health: A new administrative system & the role of empirical data Therefore, in light of these seemingly entrenched legal barriers, does any hope remain for the Rohingya in their quest for citizenship? Although the Myanmar government are vehemently opposed to changing the Citizenship law, there remain possibilities for improvement. However, it should be noted that even within these potential solutions, obstacles and complexities remain. The Rohingya’s lack of material proof to acquire citizenship has previously been, and remains to be, a sticking point and major barrier in their quest for citizenship under the 1982 Law. 81 In light of this, the first suggestion for securing citizenship for the Rohingya is to reformulate the specific rules pertaining to paperwork required for citizenship approval. Rather than attempting to overhaul the 1982 Citizenship Law in its entirety, which at present seems unlikely, international pressure should be put on Myanmar to reformulate the smaller discriminatory provisions within the law. One solution could be the implementation of a short-term administration procedure with greater leniency and amenability than its predecessor, permitting family lists or other types of proof of historical lineage, to have greater legal weight as a mechanism to obtain citizenship. This would require domestic experts in both law and administrative procedures to formulate a system that respected Myanmar’s sovereignty in creating its own process of citizenship, but also permitted international experts, as neutral observers, to oversee the process ensuring due diligence was being paid to non-discrimination. One other alternative solution, to bolster a new type of administration system, would be to conduct research in Rakhine State and gain empirical data on who gets citizenship 76 Human Rights Council (HRC), Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar (2015) Twenty Eighth Session 77 M Zarni & A Cowley, ‘The Slow-Burning Genocide of Myanmar’s Rohingya’ (2014) 23(3) Pac Rim L & Pol'y J 78 Human Rights Watch (HRW), ‘Burma: Government Plan Would Segregate Rohingya – Force Resettlement, Discriminatory Citizenship Creates Dangers’ (2014) 79 Ibid 80 Human Rights Watch (HRW), ‘Burma: Amend Biased Citizenship Law’ (2015) 81 S Aung, ‘Burmese Govt Resumes Citizenship Verification of Rohingyas’ (2014) Irrawaddy Online 11