Statelessness in Czechia | January 2024 4 A person is a refugee if they meet this definition (or if they are a Palestinian in certain circumstances)2 whether or not the person has been officially recognised as a refugee. Regional or national legislation may also have different definitions and protection frameworks that are wider than the international definition of the 1951 Convention. Stateless person: a person ‘who is not considered as a national by any State under the operation of its law’ (1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, Article 1). A person who meets this definition is stateless, whether or not their statelessness has been officially recognised.3 Undetermined or unknown nationality: refers to a situation where a person’s nationality or lack of nationality is not yet confirmed. These terms should be used with extreme caution for the shortest possible time and should always trigger a formal determination of the person’s nationality or statelessness. People who identify themselves as stateless should generally be recorded as stateless and referred to an appropriate procedure to determine their statelessness (or nationality), in line with international law. Statelessness determination procedure (SDP): a legal process by which an individual, usually in a migratory context, is officially recognised as a stateless person and granted stateless status in a host country (including residence and socio-economic rights). Nationality determination procedure: a process by which an individual’s nationality is determined (usually in the country in which they were born) and which may also determine that the person has no nationality. This procedure should be applied to children soon after birth for the purposes of determining and recording their nationality. Statelessness in Czechia is mainly linked with migration. Based on a 2018 UNHCR mapping study4 and UNHCR’s 2023 provisional mid-year data5, there are approximately 1,500 stateless persons living in Czechia. There are official statistics published by the Ministry of Interior (MoI) and by the Czech Statistical Office (CSO). However, there is no central register of foreign nationals living in Czechia. Official statistics do not cover all stateless persons in the country. The exact number of stateless persons living in Czechia and their backgrounds is therefore unknown. However, there are a significant number of stateless individuals dispersed throughout Czechia from various countries and regions, mostly former USSR countries. Population census data has evolved over the years, with the 2021 census6 listing 29,137 persons as "not identified" and the 2011 census7 listing 1,502 persons as having "no citizenship". The MoI provides monthly statistics on foreigners with legal residence8, which include the categories "stateless and not identified," "citizenship unknown or not 2 Pursuant to Article 1D of the Refugee Convention and other international law and UN resolutions. See Palestinians and the Search for Protection as Refugees and Stateless Persons (ENS & BADIL, 2022). 3 A distinction between de jure and de facto statelessness is not made in this guide, as it is not relevant for the purposes of determining whether a person is stateless under the 1954 Convention. The term de facto stateless is not defined in international law and it is recommended to avoid it, as broader interpretations of the term have been used to unduly exclude from protection persons who are stateless under Article 1(1) of the 1954 Convention. For example, a person who should be considered stateless in accordance with a state’s law but is not in practice recognised as a national by the authorities of that state, is considered stateless ‘under the operation’ of that state’s law. 4 UNHCR, Faces of Statelessness in the Czech Republic, December 2020. Available here. 5 UNHCR Czech Republic Factsheet, September 2023. Available here. 6 See results here 7 See results here 8 See here