Statelessness Working Paper Series No. 2016/02 “[…] since the onset of the Syrian crisis, the number of stateless persons reported in the country has dropped from 300,000 at the start of 2011 to 160,000 at the end of 2013. Only part of this reduction is due to efforts to resolve the situation, namely through the naturalization of a segment of the stateless group on the basis of a specially adopted decree. Much of the decrease in numbers comes as the result of forced displacement prompted by the conflict.” 1 1. Introduction The above citation from the first edition of The World’s Stateless report succinctly describes the developments over recent years affecting one of the world’s largest and most protracted stateless populations: a section of the ethnically Kurdish community in Syria deprived of nationality following an exceptional census that took place in 1962. After little change in their situation and legal status for almost 50 years, the new context of popular uprising in 2011 (part of the so-called Arab Spring) and subsequent civil war in Syria significantly affected the country’s stateless Kurds in two key ways. Firstly, in April 2011 Syrian president Bashar al-Assad issued Legislative Decree No. 49 as a concessionary measure intended to reduce participation of the historically restive Kurdish population in the anti-government protest movement growing in momentum across the country. The decree “grants Syrian Arab nationality to those registered as ajanib [‘foreigners’] of Hassaka [governorate in north-eastern Syria]” and as a result a considerable number of Kurds from Syria were able to acquire nationality for the first time. It, however, makes no mention of the second category of stateless Kurds: some 150,000 maktumeen [meaning ‘concealed’] who were excluded from its provisions. Further analysis of the decree from the perspective of reducing statelessness – as well as its limitations in law and implementation – is provided in a 2013 report issued by Tilburg University Statelessness Program.2 Secondly, within the 4.8 million Syrians who have fled the country due to violence and insecurity since the start of the war,3 a considerable – though exactly unknown – proportion of the stateless Kurds have crossed the border, mostly into northern Iraq though others are found in Lebanon and Turkey. This mass displacement is on top of the more than decade-long pattern of stateless Kurds individually travelling to Europe by illegal means in order to escape their hopeless situation in the region;4 a trend that continues until today. After a brief update assessing the current impact of the 2011 Decree for Syria’s stateless Kurds, the focus of this paper is rather on the intersection of statelessness and displacement across international borders. While the two-directional link of statelessness as both a cause and result of displacement has been well-established,5 the subject matter here will be the impact that displacement (especially forced displacement) to another country can have on the situation of those who are already stateless, and how this can determine their options for durable solutions in contrast to persons enjoying an established nationality. The present research therefore draws on semi-structured field interviews conducted with stateless Kurds from Syria present in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KR-I) during early 1 Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion, The World’s Stateless (Wolf Legal Publishers, 2014), p. 52. Figures refer to UNHCR’s statistical reporting on statelessness. 2 Zahra Albarazi, ‘The Stateless Syrians’ (2013), Middle East and North Africa Nationality and Statelessness Research Project, Tilburg University Statelessness Program <http://www.refworld.org/pdfid/52a983124.pdf>. 3 UNHCR, Syria Regional Refugee Response data, March 2016. 4 Jordi Tejel, Syria’s Kurds: History, Politics, and Society (Routledge, 2009), p. 68. 5 Laura van Waas and Zahra Albarazi, ‘Statelessness and Displacement: Scoping Paper’ (May 2015) Norwegian Refugee Council & Tilburg University <http://www.nrc.no/arch/_img/9197390.pdf>. 1