MYLA also participated in the adoption of the new ‘Law on Foreigners’5 from 2018. In
addition, MYLA prepared the draft amendments to the Law on Civil Registry adopted by
the Parliament in June 2023.
4.
The European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC)6 is a Roma-led international public interest law
organisation, working to combat anti-Romani racism and human rights abuse of Roma in
Europe. The approach of the ERRC involves strategic litigation, international advocacy,
research and policy development and training of Romani activists. The ERRC has
consultative status with the Council of Europe, as well as with the Economic and Social
Council of the United Nations.
5.
The European Network on Statelessness (ENS)7 is a civil society alliance of NGOs, lawyers,
academics, and other independent experts committed to addressing statelessness in
Europe. Based in London, it currently has over 180 members in 40 European countries.
ENS organises its work around three pillars – law and policy development, awarenessraising, and capacity-building. ENS provides expert advice and support to a range of
stakeholders, including governments. This submission partially draws on information and
analysis from ENS’s Statelessness Index, which covers North Macedonia.8
6.
The Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion (ISI)9 is the first and only human rights NGO
dedicated to working on statelessness at the global level. ISI’s mission is to promote
inclusive societies by realising and protecting everyone’s right to a nationality. The
Institute has made over 100 country specific UPR submissions on the human rights of
stateless persons. ISI has also compiled summaries of the key challenges related to
statelessness in all countries under review under the 23rd to the 44th UPR Sessions.
Previous UPR and UN Treaty bodies’ recommendations to
North Macedonia
7.
North Macedonia has received four recommendations during the third cycle of the
Universal Periodic Review (UPR) in 2019, all of which were accepted. 10 Senegal
recommended that North Macedonia should “integrate more the concerns of minorities,
indigenous peoples and stateless persons in existing political programmes”, 11 and the
United States of America recommended that it “fully implement the recommendations
of the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy Strategy for the Roma 2014–2020, including
recording every individual in the registry of births, in order to combat socioeconomic
marginalization and labour discrimination faced by individuals belonging to the Roma
community”.12 Ukraine and Honduras both recommended that North Macedonia accede
to the Convention of the Reduction of Statelessness,13 which the Government of North
Macedonia implemented in 2020.
5
Law on Foreigners (Official Gazette of the Republic of Macedonia No. 97/2018 from the 28.05.2018).
For more information, see http://www.errc.org/.
7
For more information, see https://www.statelessness.eu.
8 ENS, Statelessness Index: North Macedonia, https://index.statelessness.eu/country/north-macedonia.
9 For more information, see https://www.institutesi.org/.
10 United Nations General Assembly, Human Rights Council, ‘Report of the Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review:
North Macedonia’ (9 April 2019) UN Doc A/HRC/41/11; United Nations General Assembly, Human Rights Council, ‘Report of the
Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review: North Macedonia – Addendum: Views on conclusions and/or
recommendations, voluntary commitments and replies presented by the State under review’ (13 June 2019)
A/HRC/41/11/Add.1.
11 ibid, recommendation 104.58.
12 ibid, recommendation 104.156.
13 ibid, recommendations 104.6 and 104.14.
6
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