The Right to a Nationality and the Right to Adequate Housing
not guaranteed the fulfilment of state obligations. The Sustainable Development
Goals (‘SDGs’) provide another avenue for recognising the importance of
addressing both statelessness and inadequate housing in order to end poverty, but
given their non-binding nature, they too have their limitations. While multiple
goals and targets relate to reducing statelessness, 134 Goal 16.9 (‘provide legal
identity for all, including birth registration’) is the most explicit about states’
obligations to prevent and reduce statelessness. 135 Similarly, Goal 11.1 (‘ensure
access for all to adequate, safe and affordable housing and basic services and
upgrade slums’ by 2030) most clearly recognises the importance of adequate
housing. 136 The SDGs make no distinction based on nationality and emphasise
states’ obligations to ensure access to adequate housing for all. Furthermore,
Goal 11.1 and its associated goal’s emphasis on participatory settlement
planning is especially important for stateless persons, who are often excluded
from decision-making processes and whose unique concerns thus go unnoted.
Additionally, the Habitat III New Urban Agenda reaffirms the SDG’s
commitments to more inclusive planning by bringing together UN agencies,
government, and civil society organisations. 137 While it makes no reference to
statelessness, its emphasis on dialogue with all members of society including
‘refugees, internally displaced persons and migrants, regardless of their
migration status, without discrimination based on race, religion, ethnicity, or
socioeconomic status’ 138 to address the housing needs of those in vulnerable
situations may be understood to extend to stateless persons. 139 This inclusivity
can help identify shortcomings and structural weaknesses of existing policies and
their disproportionate impact on stateless persons’ dignity and enjoyment of
other human rights. Participatory planning might begin to reduce incidences of
policy measures that ignore the intersectionality of human rights violations or the
underlying discrimination that causes them. This, in turn, might allow for the
SDGs to meet their goals of leaving no one behind and ‘reach[ing] the furthest
behind first’, 140 which must include stateless persons.
This analysis has focused on state failures in the inclusion of stateless persons
in housing strategies and potential means for participation, but has also stressed
that in order to ensure true inclusion, the underlying causes of statelessness must
be addressed. Each state has unique circumstances and challenges surrounding
both the realisation of the right to adequate housing and the right to a nationality,
which will lead to differing responses and are worthy of future analysis on a
state-by-state basis. The challenges faced by nomadic populations in both
gaining state recognition as citizens and having their land and housing rights
respected and realised are of particular concern and deserve further investigation.
Additional analysis might also explore the connection between statelessness and
134 de Chickera (n 20) 5.
135 Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, UN Doc
136
137
138
139
140
A/RES/70/1 (21 October 2015) 21, 25 (‘Sustainable Development Goals’). United Nations
High Commissioner for Refugees, ‘The Sustainable Development Goals and Addressing
Statelessness’ (Briefing Note, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees 2017) 4.
Inter-Agency Expert Group on SDG Indicators, ‘Goal 11: Make Cities and Human
Settlements Inclusive, Safe, Resilient and Sustainable’ (United Nations Statistics Division 3
March 2016) 2 <https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/files/metadata-compilation/Metadata-Goal11.pdf>.
United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development, New Urban
Agenda (Habitat III Secretariat, United Nations 2017) iv.
ibid 14 [42].
ibid 13.
Sustainable Development Goals, UN Doc A/RES/70/1 (n 135) 3 [4].
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