SEEKING NATIONALITY THE JUDICIAL ODYSSEY OF APPLICANTS their personal status events with their respective embassies. The only available Today, there is no official policy to handle the issue of statelessness in Lebanon solution for the with the aim to prevent it and reduce it. vast majority The only available solution for the vast of stateless majority of stateless persons to come persons to out of the “shadow and humiliation”, is to come out of resort to the judiciary through lawsuits the “shadow either for late birth registration before the single civil judge or for the acquisition humiliation”, of the nationality before the civil Court of is to resort to First Instance. the judiciary Naturalization could be used as a solution through to end statelessness. In practice, this lawsuits solution is most of the time used for political reasons rather than to end statelessness. For example, the collective naturalization decree of 1994 naturalized a number of stateless persons but did not include all the stateless population. Nevertheless, naturalization is not a right but rather the nationality is granted on discretionary basis. Purpose of the Study This study aims, first of all, to analyze the extent to which the recourse to the judiciary as a sole solution today is easily available to each and every stateless person who meet the conditions for acquiring the nationality by law. The analysis focuses on the social and legal profiles of the different categories of stateless persons and the difficulties and obstacles they faced in attempting to end their statelessness through resorting to judicial proceedings. It details the difficult course before and after the filing of the lawsuits starting with the building of the case, during the court proceedings, and after the conclusion of the lawsuit. The study also aims to show the extent to which Lebanese laws are compatible with relevant international human rights standards. Methodology of the Study The study adopts mixed methods – quantitative and qualitative. The study is mainly based on review and analysis of a sample of 76 lawsuits (45 late birth registration and 31 nationality) represented before the competent courts by attorneys assigned by the Ruwad alHoukouk between 2014 and 2018 and of 88 judicial decisions issued by the two Court of Cassation personal status and nationality chambers between 2014 and 2017. Further, the analysis included the review of randomly selected from the 3142 individual stateless followed by the Association. The presentation of actual problems, especially those related to non-judicial costs, is based on the testimonies and statements retrieved from these cases. The analysis of the 88 Cassation court decision aimed to show the jurisprudence trends related to late birth registration and acquisition of the nationality lawsuits. However, the majority of these decisions turned out to be related to the naturalization decree of 1994. The analysis of these will be used in a separate publication related to the Naturalization Decree No. 5247/1994. By the time of writing this study, the majority of the court proceeding of these lawsuits are either at their final stages awaiting court decisions and/or obtained decision and some of them are being in the execution process and some have been executed and the claimants obtained the Lebanese nationality. The draft report of the study was discussed with focus experts group composed of attorneys, state attorneys, academics, the Working Group on Statelessness representative9. This process aimed to obtain feedback and validate the analysis and findings before publication. The study is divided into three parts. Part I describes the causes and profiles of the stateless population in Lebanon, the available legal solutions to end their statelessness. Part II focuses on the analysis of the court proceedings, and Part III describes the obstacles stateless persons encounter at all levels in their plight to end their statelessness. The study ends with conclusion and recommendations. SEEKING NATIONALITY | INTRODUCTION FRONTIERS RIGHTS Main Findings of the Study The study concludes that stateless individuals in Lebanon face a number of obstacles at different levels, whether legal, procedural, or practical that limit their ability to take practical steps towards putting an end to their statelessness through the judiciary. These obstacles stretch from the preparation and building the legal file to filing the lawsuit and continue all throughout the stages of the court proceedings up until the adjudication and the execution. The present study concludes that in theory access to justice is available to stateless persons to put an end of their statelessness but in practice it is a kind of deadlock. 20