Lawyers for Human Rights and Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion Joint Submission to the Human Rights Council at the 27th Session of the Universal Periodic Review The Republic of South Africa Introduction 1. Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR)1 and the Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion (the Institute)2 make this joint submission to the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) in relation to statelessness, 3 access to nationality and human rights in the Republic of South Africa. 2. This submission focuses on: I. II. III. IV. V. The right of children to acquire and retain South African nationality, in particular where they would otherwise be stateless; Documentation of adults who were born in South Africa through the Late Registration of Birth Process; The blocking of identity documents and resultant barriers to accessing South African Citizenship; The lack of a dedicated Mechanism to identify and regularise the status of stateless people in South Africa; and The arbitrary detention of stateless persons in South Africa. 3. It must be noted that there are also other categories of persons who are stateless or at risk of statelessness who have been identified in South Africa and are currently being assisted by LHR. This Submission draws on experience with research, advocacy, litigation, awareness raising and direct support of the co-submitting organisations and their partners, performed in South Africa and internationally. This includes the recent joint submission by the co-submitters to the 1 LHR is a South African human rights organisation committed to social justice activism and strategic public interest litigation. In 2011, LHR launched the Statelessness Project as part of the Refugee and Migrant Rights Programme. LHR provides direct legal services to stateless persons; engages government on the need for legal reform to prevent and reduce statelessness; raises awareness the rights of stateless people; and advocates for accession to the 1954 and 1961 UN statelessness conventions. LHR has reached more than 3,000 persons from over 28 countries of origin. LHR has identified numerous categories of stateless persons in the Republic, both migrants and those born in South Africa. For more details of LHR’s statelessness project, see: http://www.lhr.org.za/programme/rmrp-statelessness-project-accessing-citizenship-and-nationality . 2 The Institute is an independent non-profit organisation committed to an integrated, human rights based response to the injustice of statelessness and exclusion through a combination of research, education, partnerships and advocacy. Established in August 2014, it is the first and only global centre committed to promoting the human rights of stateless persons and ending statelessness. For more information about the Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion and its work please see the website http://www.institutesi.org/. 3 According to Article 1.1 of the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, a stateless person is someone “who is not considered as a national by any state under the operation of its law.” The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimates more than 10 million people worldwide are stateless and without the protection of any state.