Statelessness & Citizenship Review
2019
1(1)
2
Children Born Out of Wedlock or before a Marriage Was
Registered..................................................................................... 115
E Indigenous Persons ................................................................................... 118
F
Refugees and Children of Migrant Workers............................................. 118
G Intersection of Factors .............................................................................. 121
The Mirage of a Flood: De Facto Citizens in Malaysia ........................................ 122
A The Law of Interpretation — Public Policy is Irrelevant Here ................ 122
B Majority of Stateless Persons Have Genuine, Effective and
Substantial Links ...................................................................................... 122
C There are Built-In Restrictions in the Law for Foreigners ....................... 123
Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 123
Appendix............................................................................................................... 126
INTRODUCTION
Who is stateless and when is a state obligated to confer nationality under
international law? Using the case study of Malaysia, this paper sheds light on
who are stateless and gives weight to the international customary doctrine of
dominant and effective nationality as a factor to consider when conferring
citizenship on stateless persons in Malaysia. This paper shares only part of the
results of a larger research project investigating legal barriers and entitlements to
citizenship in Malaysia.
This article builds upon existing research in Malaysia on the issue of
statelessness. It goes beyond existing research that details how Malaysian law
confers citizenship and the promotion of a human rights lens on the issue of
statelessness. 1 This project supports other research that characterises persons as
‘being at risk of statelessness’, how the invocation of statelessness may ‘work
against recognition’, 2 and that understanding statelessness requires
understanding how it is ‘plural and diverse’. 3
This study is part of a larger research project that provides its findings in two
parts. The first is in this paper, focusing on who is stateless in Malaysia. The
second provides details on the procedural and substantive legal barriers for
stateless persons to obtaining citizenship in Malaysia and will be published
elsewhere. This particular article reveals findings from a qualitative survey of
case law, lawyers, non-governmental organisations (‘NGOs’) and stateless
1
2
3
See, eg, Raymond Mah and Chloe Lim Yen Hwa, ‘Citizenship for Adopted Children — A
Malaysian Perspective’ (MahWengKwai & Associates, 10 January 2013)
<https://www.mahwengkwai.com/citizenship-for-adopted-children-a-malaysianperspective/>; Choo Chin Low, Report on Citizenship Law: Malaysia and Singapore
(GLOBALCIT
Country
Report
No
2017/03,
February
2017)
<http://cadmus.eui.eu/handle/1814/45371>; Rodziana Mohamed Razali, ‘Addressing
Statelessness in Malaysia: New Hope and Remaining Challenges’ (Working Paper No
2017/9, Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion, 2017); Equal Rights Trust, Confined
Spaces: Legal Protections for Rohingya in Bangladesh, Malaysia and Thailand (Report,
December
2016)
<https://www.equalrightstrust.org/resources/confined-spaces-legalprotections-rohingya-bangladesh-malaysia-and-thailand-0> (‘Confined Spaces’).
Catherine Allerton, ‘Contested Statelessness in Sabah, Malaysia: Irregularity and the
Politics of Recognition’ (2017) 15(3) Journal of Immigrant and Refugee Studies 250;
Tenaganita, Acting Today for Tomorrow's Generation: A Report on Regional Conference on
Stateless/Undocumented Children in Sabah (Report, 2006) (‘Acting for Tomorrow’s
Generation, Today’).
Nando Sigona, ‘Everyday Statelessness in Italy: Status, Rights, and Camps’ (2016) 39(2)
Ethnic and Racial Studies 263.
96