Tirana Legal Aid Society, European Roma Rights Centre, Institute
on Statelessness and Inclusion and European Network on
Statelessness
Joint Submission to the Human Rights Council at the 33rd Session
of the Universal Periodic Review
Albania
Introduction
1. Tirana Legal Aid Society (TLAS), the Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion (ISI), European
Roma Rights Centre (ERRC) and European Network on Statelessness (ENS) make this joint
submission to the Universal Periodic Review (UPR), on the human rights challenges
pertaining to statelessness, with a specific focus on discrimination and exclusion of
members of the Roma community in Albania.
2. This submission focuses on various issues relating to the (risk of) statelessness,
discrimination and human rights of those within the Roma community in Albania. It draws
heavily on the 2018 joint report of the co-submitting organisations: “Roma Belong:
Statelessness, Discrimination and Marginalisation of Roma in Albania”,1 with relevant text
from the report being reproduced verbatim, and other sections being paraphrased or
summarised.
3. TLAS2 is an independent non-profit organisation dedicated to fulfilment of the social and
legal needs of the people in need: education and increasing of the awareness of the
Albanian society on the rule of law and human rights; promotion of improvements in
Albanian legislation; progress of the community and strengthening of the democracy in
Albania. TLAS overall Objectives are providing legal services to the vulnerable individuals
and groups in need, Increasing awareness and publish information on the important legal
and human rights issues and undertaking law improvement initiatives for a better solution
of the legal and social problems of the people in need.
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See http://www.errc.org/uploads/upload_en/file/4993_file3_roma-belong-albania-english-language.pdf. This report
is one of the outputs of a research and advocacy project of the ERRC, ISI and ENS in collaboration with partner
organisations in Albania (TLAS), Bosnia and Herzegovina (Vaša Prava), Kosovo (Centre for Legal Aid and Regional
Development), Macedonia (Macedonian Young Lawyers Association), Montenegro (Mladi Romi), Serbia (Praxis) and
Ukraine (Desyate Kvitnya), which aims to better understand and address Roma statelessness in European Union
candidate and neighbourhood countries. In particular, it aims to contribute to: 1. Strengthening understanding of
Roma statelessness in the research countries; its causes and the obstacles that stand in the way of solutions; 2.
Strengthening the understanding, attitudes and capacity of Roma rights NGOs and activists to effectively mobilise to
end Roma statelessness; and 3. Strengthening international, regional (EU, Council of Europe and OSCE) and national
responses to Roma statelessness.
1. For more information about TLAS mission and activities visit: http://www.tlas.org.al/en/about-tlas.
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