116
Swider and den Heijer
Finland,56 Moluccans and other persons originating from Indonesia in The
Netherlands,57 and persons who were born in the former Soviet Union and
former Yugoslavia in Belgium.58
Obviously, the different categories of stateless persons in Europe reflect the
many conceivable causes of statelessness, ranging from conflicting or discriminatory nationality laws, to loss of nationality in the context of state succession,
to withdrawal due to fraudulent naturalisation and so on. Stateless persons
may have been born in the EU or entered it later in life, they may enjoy legal
residence or be undocumented, and they may be refugees, rejected asylum
seekers, or persons who entered the country without ever bringing an asylum
claim. Protection needs vary from group to group and from person to person.
Indeed, many stateless persons in Europe already enjoy a high level of protection. Statelessness does not have to result in a humanitarian problem, or grave
violations of basic human rights. If adequate identification and protection
mechanisms are in place, stateless persons can have access to basic rights, or
even enjoy all the benefits available to nationals.59
3.3
Protection Failures in EU Member States
A comprehensive protection regime for stateless persons requires, first of all,
a mechanism for the identification of the status of stateless persons, and secondly rules and procedures for obtaining a secure residence status in a particular country. All stateless persons need access to a mechanism to establish
the legal fact of their statelessness, regardless of their background or legal situation. They should also be able to enjoy the minimum protection of the 1954
Convention, which can usually best be achieved by granting stateless persons
the right of legal residence. However, unlike access to status determination,
access to legal residence is not always necessary for ensuring appropriate protection. Sometimes stateless individuals are already residing legally in their
host state on other grounds, such as asylum, family reunification, or work. In
56
U NHCR, Mapping Statelessness in Finland (Geneva, UNHCR, 2014), pp. 17–18.
57
U NHCR, Mapping Statelessness in the Netherlands (Geneva, UNHCR, 2011), p. 24.
58
U NHCR, Mapping Statelessness in Belgium (Geneva, UNHCR, 2012), p. 32.
59 An example of the latter is a small stateless population in the Netherlands originating
from the Moluccan islands; see more in Adviescommissie Vreemdelingenzaken (ACVZ),
Geen land te bekennen (Dutch Advisory Committee on Migration Affairs, ‘No country of
one’s own’), Dec. 2013 (Den Haag, ACVZ, 2013), pp. 31–32.The non-citizens of Latvia and
Estonia are examples of stateless populations with access to decent standard of living in
their countries of residence (even though their lack of citizenship is highly controversial
from the political point of view, and they lack a number of political rights).
European Journal of Migration and Law 19 (2017) 101–135