IDLO AND UNHCR Inclusive and participatory system of governance It is rare for stateless people to be given a seat at the decision-making table when it comes to crafting laws and policies that determine their legal status and the conditions in which they must live. As a result, even well-meaning initiatives to, for example, grant stateless persons in a migratory context a pathway to regularise their legal status and to facilitate their naturalisation can be beset with problems. This can be because such processes have failed to account for the lived reality of being stateless which can include a lifetime of illiteracy, making it impossible to understand information provided, fear of authorities which can hamper uptake, and poverty, which can render even the most minimal application fees prohibitive. In order to embody key principles of the rule of law, laws and policies must be shaped with the meaningful participation of those affected by such laws and policies. For this reason, the rule of law is predicated on governance systems that are accessible, responsive, and accountable to everyone in a given society. The Secretary-General’s report Our Common Agenda acknowledges that “a vibrant social contract guarantees the conditions for people to live a decent life, leaving no one behind and enabling all to participate in society, as promised in the 2030 Agenda”.32 Participation is a fundamental requirement of public decisionmaking that ultimately guarantees that laws represent the collective will of all people and underpins the social contract between the State and the governed; it is also a substantive right on its own, enshrined in international human rights law.33 An inclusive and participatory system of governance places people at the centre of justice as the key to ensuring that the rule of law extends human rights and fundamental freedoms to “all persons,” not merely its citizens. Box 6: Resolving Makonde statelessness in Kenya In Kenya, the stateless Makonde people were able to resolve their plight in close cooperation with civil society organisations, the Catholic Church and UNHCR. In July 2016, the Makonde community, supported by the Kenyan Human Rights Commission (KHRC), petitioned the President to be registered as Kenyan citizens. In October 2016, around 300 members of the Makonde community embarked on a four-day trek from Kwale to Nairobi to seek an audience before the President to present a new petition calling on the President’s office to ensure that the Makonde and other stateless persons would be recognised as Kenyan citizens. The march gave significant visibility to the plight of the Makonde and had a galvanising effect. As a result, the President issued a directive that all eligible stateless Makonde be registered as Kenyan nationals and issued with Kenyan identity cards by December 2016, which eventually led to the resolution of their statelessness at the end of 2019. Box 7: Addressing stateless children in the Brazilian diaspora In Brazil, strong and effective lobbying by civil society led to the resolution of the situation of stateless children in the Brazilian diaspora. In response to a 1994 Constitutional Amendment that rendered children of Brazilians abroad stateless, members of the Brazilian diaspora joined together to form a civil society movement called Brasileirinhos Apatridas to push for legal reform. Due to active engagement with the media, both in countries of the diaspora and in Brazil, and strong lobbying by Congress, Brasileirinhos Apatridas was able to effect legal reform that resolved the statelessness problems that were created by the 1994 Constitutional Amendment.34 11