Legal briefing: Statelessness and the prohibition on discrimination against Romani communities April 2023 INTRODUCTION According to international law, a stateless person is someone who has no nationality, someone who is “not considered as a national by any state under the operation of its law”. 1 For the millions of stateless people around the world, statelessness can result in denial of their human rights, including the universal human right to a nationality. 2 Stateless people often do not have access to basic and fundamental rights, such as the right to access education, health care, employment, and other social protections such as the right to marry or register the birth of their children - to legally ‘exist’. As well as migrants, statelessness also affects those who have lived in the same place for generations (known as in situ statelessness), often as a result of discriminatory laws or practices against certain communities trapped in intergenerational statelessness.3 There are many widely recognised causes of statelessness including gender or race discrimination in nationality laws, State succession, lack of documentation, poor administrative procedures, conflicts in citizenship laws and the inheritance of statelessness, but a closer look at each of these reveals that discrimination often plays a role. 4 Nationality laws may be written or (more often in Europe) implemented in such a way as to exclude certain groups or make it more difficult for them to acquire or prove a nationality. As a result of this, 75% of the world’s stateless populations belong to ethnic, racial, religious, or linguistic minority groups,5 and Roma are among Europe’s most marginalised ethnic minorities which is also significantly affected by (a risk of) statelessness.6 It is crucial that States put in place mechanisms to meaningfully address discrimination, protect stateless people, and prevent statelessness, in line with their international obligations. United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, 360 U.N.T.S. 117, 1954, Article 1(1). Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 15. 3 European Network on Statelessness, Statelessness determination and protection in Europe: good practice, challenges, and risks (2021): https://index.statelessness.eu/sites/default/files/ENSStatelessness_determination_and_protection_in_Europe-Sep_2021_0.pdf. 4 Ibid; Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion, The World’s Stateless (2014), pp. 23–27: http://www.institutesi.org/worldsstateless.pdf. 5 UNHCR, ‘IBELONG Campaign to End Statelessness by 2024, Stateless minorities’: https://www.unhcr.org/ibelong/stateless-minorities/. 6 The term ‘Roma’ usually refers to a variety of groups, including to people who do not identify as Roma – such as Ashkali and Egyptians – but who are nevertheless the targets of antigypsyism. In this briefing, we speak of ‘Roma’ to include groups in the Western Balkans who are subject to antigypsyism, including Roma, Ashkali, Egyptian, and Sinti communities, amongst others. See Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion, European Network on Statelessness, and European Roma Rights Centre, Statelessness, Discrimination and Marginalisation of Roma in the Western Balkans and Ukraine (2017): https://www.statelessness.eu/sites/www.statelessness.eu/files/attachments/resources/roma-belong.pdf, p. 8. See also Council of Europe Strategic Action Plan for Roma and Traveller Inclusion (2020-2025): https://search.coe.int/cm/Pages/result_details.aspx?ObjectId=0900001680998933. 1 2 2