The court declared stateless an applicant born in the United Arab Emirates to a Palestinian father and a Syrian mother, which the Dutch Immigration and Naturalisation Service (IND) agreed with. Despite holding a Palestinian passport and a Syrian refugee travel document, he did not qualify for citizenship under Palestinian, UAE, or Syrian law. The court ruled that since no State recognises him as a citizen, his statelessness is confirmed. UK Supreme Court denies Shamima Begum permission to appeal against deprivation of citizenship UK – Permission to Appeal decision in the matter of Shamima Begum (Appellant) v Secretary of State for the Home Department (Respondent), UKSC 2024/0096 (7 August 2024) The UK Supreme Court has denied Shamima Begum, who travelled to Syria as a child to join ‘ISIL’, permission to appeal against the UK Secretary of State’s decision to deprive her of her British citizenship, on the basis that she was a dual British and Bangladeshi national. The Supreme Court found that the grounds of appeal did not raise an arguable point of law. One of the grounds of appeal concerns the fact that the Secretary of State failed to have regard that the order to deprive her of her citizenship would render her stateless, in accordance with UK law, as it is not reasonably possible for her to be admitted into Bangladesh. The Supreme Court held that the lower courts found that the Secretary of State had taken into account the fact that the deprivation decision would render the applicant ‘de facto’ stateless and there was nothing indicating that there was an error of law in that conclusion. Read ENS blogs on this case, including the problematic distinction between “de jure” and “de facto” statelessness: Shamima Begum: now stateless, but still deprived of her British citizenship, Shamima Begum Supreme Court judgment: What are the implications for statelessness cases?, Burden of proof in statelessness cases and the meaning of “by operation of its law”. Read summaries of previous judgments in the same case on the Statelessness Case Law Database: Shamima Begum v Secretary of State for the Home Department (23 February 2024) and Begum v SIAC (16 July 2020) & Begum v SSHD (7 February 2020). Considerations on risk of return and standard of proof in a UK case on an undocumented person from Kashmiri India UK - Upper Tribunal Immigration and Asylum Chamber, Case No: UI-2024-000873 (12 July 2024) In a case concerning an appeal from an undocumented person from Kashmiri India against the Secretary of State for the Home Department’s decision to refuse his protection claim, the Upper Tribunal upheld the First-tier Tribunal’s decision which had allowed the appeal on the basis that the appellant was stateless and would be subjected to prohibited treatment on return to India as a result of his statelessness. The Upper Tribunal upheld the judge’s assessment on the applicant’s risk on return to India and finding that the applicant had taken reasonable steps to re-obtain his Indian nationality. The Secretary of State for the Home Department’s appeal was therefore dismissed. The judgment includes interesting considerations on the standard of proof.