Chronology of Policies affecting potentially Stateless Persons and Refugees in Malaysia Tamara Joan Duraisingam1 Statelessness Working Paper Series No. 2016/07 Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion December 2016 Author biography Tamara Joan recently completed her PhD studies in University Kebangsaan Malaysia on Domestic and International Legal Analysis on the protection of Stateless Persons residing in Malaysia. She has taught Constitutional Law, Public International Law, Criminal Law and Business Law in private universities in Malaysia. These areas are also her areas of research interest and in which she has authored and co-authored various research articles. Author email Tamarajoan.duraisingam@taylors.edu.my Key words statelessness – nationality – Malaysia – human rights – policy – Rohingya – Orang Asli Abstract Since the 1970s, Malaysia has had to grapple with the issue of refugees coming into Peninsular Malaysia and Sabah. More recently, the issue of statelessness has featured in tandem with the refugee issues. This brief paper offers the reader an appreciation of snippets of policies affecting asylum seekers, refugees and stateless persons of Malaysia. The reader is provided a summary account on Asylum policies from the 1970s onwards followed by an understanding of policies affecting certain communities in Malaysia that have de facto or de jure stateless persons in their midst. This would include the Orang Asli of Peninsular Malaysia, the Indians of predominantly Tamil descent without documentation, and the stateless persons of Sabah and the Rohingya who have habitual residence in Burma but are currently residing in Malaysia. 1 The views of the author are her own based on her independent research and not the views of the University where the author is employed.