challenges in proving their prior longterm residence in Cambodia and eligibility for Cambodian nationality. Cambodian officials routinely treat long-term ethnic Vietnamese residents as ‘foreign nationals’ or ‘immigrants’, despite their strong claims for citizenship. Often their documentation (for some even proof of citizenship) was lost during their displacement, confiscated by the authorities, or viewed with suspicion. Additionally, during Khmer Rouge rule, civil registration records were systematically destroyed. In 2018, in their trial judgment in Case 002/02 before the ECCC, judges concluded that participating stateless Vietnamese victims had not only experienced genocide but also suffered ‘the loss of legal status due to the loss of documentation showing their ties to Cambodia’.45 authorities frequently record them as ‘Vietnamese nationals’ through their own registration processes, without any verification procedure with the Vietnamese government known to exist. Today’s situation of stateless communities of Vietnamese origin in Cambodia is characterised by three key challenges: lack of effective access to birth and other civil registration; a precarious legal status due to changing government policies and the lack of pathways to naturalisation; and insufficient knowledge about the scale of the problem. Prejudices and negative attitudes among the majority population towards the Vietnamese minority in part explain these challenges and further add to group’s predicament.47 Importantly, Cambodia does not officially recognise these non-citizen, long-term residents of Vietnamese origin as stateless. Responding to treaty body queries, the state party simply noted: ‘With regards to children born of Vietnamese parents and living in Cambodia, they are considered as Vietnamese. These children are not stateless.’46 Instead, the While Cambodia has witnessed noteworthy improvements in total birth registration rates – reported at above 90 percent for children under the age of 548 – there has been consistent reporting from civil society and researchers that many ethnic Vietnamese communities do not have effective access to birth registration.49 In 2016, Minority Rights Organization No effective access to birth registration: 44 Tableau, Ewa (2009) ‘Khmer Rouge Victims in Cambodia, April 1975–January 1979: A Critical Assessment of Major Estimates’, Democratic Expert Report for the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, D140/1/1 Public Redacted Version, 47-48. 45 ECCC Trial Chamber, ‘Case 002/02 Judgment’, E465, 16 November 2018, para. 4459. See also Sperfeldt, Christoph (2023) ‘Nationality as Reparation? The Case 002/02 Trial Judgment at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia’, Statelessness & Citizenship Review 5(1): 118. 46 ‘Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Cambodia: Comments by the State’, UN Doc A/HRC/39/73/Add.2 (11 September 2018) 24. 47 See Frewer, Tim (2016) ‘Cambodia’s Anti-Vietnam Obsession’, The Diplomat, 6 September 2016. <https://thediplomat.com/2016/09/cambodias-anti-vietnam-obsession/> (8 July 2024) 48 See for instance, National Institute of Statistics (2022) ‘Cambodia Socio-Economic Survey 2021’, 23. 49 Hyde, Melanie (2016), ‘Report on Access to Birth Registration for Marginalised or Vulnerable Populations: A Case Study on Ethnic Vietnamese Minority Communities in Cambodia’, report prepared for the Minority Rights Organization. 15