 UNDERSTANDING STATELESSNESS IN THE SYRIA REFUGEE CONTEXT There are also some circumstances under which an individual may cease to be Syrian. Syrian nationality law allows a citizen to renounce their Syrian nationality voluntarily, but only following acquisition of a foreign nationality.36 However, the law also sets out seven criteria under which a person could be stripped of their nationality. For example, if a Syrian national joins the military service of another State or resides in a State that is at war with Syria.37 As such, the Syrian State enjoys significant discretionary powers to denationalise a citizen and these powers may be exercised even when this renders the individual stateless. 2.1.2 STATELESSNESS IN SYRIA The issue of statelessness is not a new problem for Syria.38 As UNHCR explains: “Syria is home to some historically stateless populations, including certain Kurdish populations, long-staying stateless migrants from other countries in the region, such as the bidoon, and individuals who may have become stateless due to the inability to acquire nationality from their mothers under the law”.39 As of the end of 2015, UNHCR estimated the total number of stateless persons in Syria to be 160,000.40 A substantial stateless population, the stateless Kurds, had already been living in Syria for decades before the conflict. This group is a minority of Syria’s broader Kurdish population and their descendants, who were denationalised as the result of a census conducted in the North of Syria in 1962.41 They can be separated into two sub-groups who are widely known as the Ajanib (those registered as foreign in the census) and Maktoum Kurds42 (those who were not registered at all). The human rights situation of both of these groups was challenging even before the conflict, with widespread problems reported in accessing education, employment, property and other rights and the Maktoum Kurds, in particular, living a marginalised existence.43 It is important to note that the adoption of Decree 49 in 2011 allowed the reacquisition of nationality for thousands of stateless Kurds. According to UNHCR, by mid-2013, some 104,000 stateless individuals had acquired nationality.44 However the current conflict has made the process of applying for nationality difficult. Besides the large population of stateless Kurds, there were over half a million Palestinian refugees registered with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) in Syria,45 and “tens of thousands” 46 who did not register (UNRWA registration is not mandatory). Now displaced again by the current crisis in Syria and with a precarious legal status,47 this is another population included in this research. 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 18 RESEARCH REPORT Article 10 of the Syrian Nationality Law. Chapter Seven of the Syrian Nationality Law. Situations of statelessness can be found across the MENA region. See, for instance, UNHCR, The situation of stateless persons in the Middle East and North Africa, 2010, available at: http://www.refworld.org/ docid/4cea28072.html; and Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion, The World’s Stateless, Wolf Legal Publishers, 2014, available at: http://www.institutesi.org/worldsstateless.pdf, chapter 3.VI. UNHCR, Addressing Statelessness in the Middle East and North Africa, supra n14, page 11. UNHCR, 2015 Global Trends, 2016, including annex tables, available at: http://www.unhcr.org/globaltrends-2015.html. For more in depth information on this group please see Z. Albarazi, The Stateless Syrians, 2013, available at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2269700. Note there is a difference between Maktoum Kurds, and those labelled as Maktoum (who never accessed any registration in Syria). See, for instance, Human Rights Watch (HRW), Syria: The Silenced Kurds, 1996, available at: http:// www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/3ae6a8260.html; and Refugees International, Buried Alive: Stateless Kurds in Syria, 2006, available at: http://www.yasa-online.org/reports/buried_alive.pdf. UNHCR, Addressing Statelessness in the Middle East and North Africa, supra n14, page 11. United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), Where we work: Syria, available at: http://www.unrwa.org/where-we-work/syria. Syria Needs Assessment Project, Palestinians from Syria, 2014, available at: http://reliefweb.int/sites/ reliefweb.int/files/resources/palestinians_from_syria_march_2014.pdf. The nationality status of Palestinians is a highly complex issue, inextricably linked to questions of