2021 Statelessness & Citizenship Review 3(1) Additionally, the 23 SDPs identified for this article coincide in that the 23 countries they correspond to are parties to the 1954 Convention. They are also recent: since 2014, seven out of eight countries in the Americas adopted SDP norms, and seven of 13 countries (54%) in Europe. From a total of 23 countries with formal mechanisms for SDPs, 14 (61%) established SDP legislation after 2014, while only five countries (European countries) implemented SDP norms before 2010: France, Italy, Spain, Latvia and Hungary. Clearly, the legislation in force concerning SDPs is a relatively new development and likely related to the impact of the UNHCR #IBelong Campaign launched in 2014 to end statelessness. 18 These SDP norms are laws enacted by a congress or parliament, or by resolutions or rules issued by an executive branch. There are countries that have recognised stateless persons through migration or citizenship laws enacted by congress or parliament and, later, their SDP was adopted by resolution or the application of rules. These resolutions or rules can be issued by the executive branch (ie, ministries of foreign affairs, ministries of justice or immigration offices) or by royal decree, as in Spain. This is the case in the Americas (Mexico, Costa Rica, Ecuador and Brazil) and in Europe (Italy, Hungary, Spain, Kosovo, Bulgaria, Montenegro and Turkey). 19 On the other hand, there are countries whose organic laws on citizenship or immigration have not previously or expressly regulated the topic of statelessness. Nevertheless, such countries have adopted SDPs by decree or resolution issued by executive branches of government. 20 For example, the SDP in the Philippines was established by the Department of Justice; in Côte d'Ivoire as a joint resolution from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Justice; and, in Panama, the SDP was adopted by decree from the executive branch. There are also countries that have adopted SDPs as special laws enacted by a congress or parliament, providing the SDP with a stronger guarantee — the law comes from the political power of the ‘people’ represented in these constitutional organs. Paraguay, Uruguay and Argentina have enacted specialised laws on SDPs, while statelessness is not recognised nor identified in their organic migration or citizenship laws. In contrast, Georgia, Latvia and Ukraine, which are states that have emerged in the last 30 years, recognise statelessness in their immigration or organic laws and have adopted specific ‘statelessness laws’ without an SDP. These European countries later modified their migration or citizenship laws to include SDPs through laws enacted by parliament or congress, or by an act of their executive branch. In Moldova, citizenship and foreigner laws were directly amended to include an SDP through laws passed by their parliament. The same occurred in France and the United Kingdom, whose immigration codes regulated 18 19 20 ‘#IBelong Campaign’ (n 4). For this analysis see Part IX: Table of SDP Laws. See Part IX: Table of SDP Laws. For example, Colombia and Luxembourg, through their respective Ministries of Foreign Affairs, issued a ‘circular’ and a ‘note’, respectively, adopting some mechanism for statelessness status recognition. Although these administrative measures are not considered a formal mechanism for statelessness status recognition, these administrative measures issued by an agency from the executive branch describe a basic procedure. See Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Colombia: Circular No 168 (n 14), cited in Sentence T-006/20 (n 14). See also ‘Application for the Status as a Stateless Person’, Le Gouvernment du Grand-Dushe de Luxembourg (Web Page, 2016) <https://guichet.public.lu/en/citoyens/immigration/casspecifiques/apatride/demande-statut-apatride.html>. 64

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