Back to Contents Asylos’ own unpublished analysis of UK Home Office Country Policy Information Notes (CPINs) found that coverage of the issue of statelessness is limited, with only a handful of CPINs dedicated solely to groups who are experiencing statelessness. COI on statelessness within other CPINs did not appear to be addressed in a consistent way, sometimes appearing under the sub-title “Citizenship and nationality”, and other times, appearing under sub-titles relating to documentation, freedom of movement, or the legal framework. If the issue of statelessness was mentioned in CPINs where the main topic was not addressing a stateless group, references to relevant COI on statelessness were invariably brief and not addressed in any substantial way. Meanwhile some CPINs omit any mention of statelessness, even where it may be relevant. Much Country of Origin Information (COI) is tailored to refugee status determination procedures, and statelessness may not be identified as a possible issue in COI reports or only very briefly addressed. Experts by experience, lawyers, NGOs and academics, who took part in consultations with Asylos repeatedly pointed to a general lack of awareness among decision-makers and legal counsel about the contexts in which a person may be affected by statelessness. In addition, it was suggested that statelessness is often overlooked unless seen as a factor in causing serious harm or persecution, and is often not understood as a protection issue in its own right. In particular, participants identified the need for COI tailored to address not just nationality and citizenship frameworks, but also how they are applied, and how stateless people are treated by the authorities in countries of habitual residence in practice. Furthermore, it was observed that COI often lacks due attention to the diversity of terminology that may be used to describe people who are experiencing statelessness in the context of their country of habitual residence, which can lead to misunderstanding a person’s situation. In developing this project, we conducted in-depth consultations with a range of stakeholders from those with lived experience of statelessness, to academics, lawyers and NGOs with expertise on statelessness. These consultations provided invaluable insight, helping us to further understand information gaps and inadequacies in the available COI on statelessness. Through the consultations, we sought to identify a research focus that could serve as a “case-study”, providing relevant and up to date COI on a particular group of stateless persons, while also creating the opportunity to distil broadly applicable best practice principles when conducting COI research on the issue of statelessness. Among the stakeholders we consulted, stateless Palestinians were one of the most commonly identified groups of people for whom available COI is often inadequate. This is due to many factors, including the fact that existing COI often fails to capture the complexity of their statuses in the different countries in which they reside. Furthermore, there is very little information on the kinds of documentation available to stateless Palestinians, the entitlements that come with those documents, how easy it is to renew them, and whether they fall under the mandate of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). The theme of stateless Palestinians in Lebanon was selected as a focus for this research project because it represents a prime example of the diverse and complex causes that can lead to and perpetuate the problem of statelessness, from state succession and discrimination, to gender-discriminatory laws, and displacement due to conflict (in the case of Palestinian Refugees from Syria), and illustrates a range of considerations that COI researchers need to address when conducting research on statelessness. In undertaking this research, we faced a number of limitations. In particular, among the sources consulted, including those published by NGOs and grassroots organisations, Palestinians in Lebanon were rarely described as “stateless”, sometimes making it challenging to verify whether information was of relevance to this report. Furthermore, Lebanon has undergone significant socio-economic changes in recent years, including political and financial crises that have affected the whole of society. Many sources we consulted focused attention on the political and economic turbulence that Lebanon has experienced, however, the situation of stateless Palestinians within this context lacked visibility. It was difficult to determine the specific number of Palestinians who were stateless and living in Lebanon. This is primarily due to the fact that there has not been a proper census since 1932 and that many stateless individuals lack civil registration documents.21 Furthermore, despite the fact that the 1954 Convention defines a stateless person as someone who is “not considered as a national by any state under the operation of its law,” and despite the fact that the UNHCR publishes information on stateless people in their Global Trends Report22 and estimates that there are 4.3 million stateless people in the world overall, the number of stateless people is still a contentious issue. To make matters more confusing, those who are covered by UNRWA’s protection mandate are not included in UNHCR’s statistics. 21 The Collective for Research & Training on Development- Action, The Nationality Campaign, Ruwad alHoukouk Frontiers Rights et al, “Joint Submission to the Human Rights Council Universal Periodic Review”, July 2020, p. 4 22 UNHCR, Global Trends Report 2021, p..4 Explanatory note 10