Statelessness and climate change SUB-REGIONAL OVERVIEW: THE PACIFIC SUB-REGIONAL OVERVIEW: THE PACIFIC Guinean citizenship through naturalization.1352 The Immigration and Citizenship Authority of the country has estimated that there are between 10-15,000 Indonesian Papuans living in the country.1353 While there have been reports in recent years of some West Papuan refugees accessing citizenship, this does not appear to be universal,1354 In 2021, the US Department of State reported that no Indonesian Papuans had been granted citizenship that year.1355 In Kiribati, only a person of non-I-Kiribati descent can be stripped of Kiribati citizenship if they breach allegiance to Kiribati, obtain nationality of another country by voluntary act, or, if the Minister deems it necessary for “public good”, leaving stateless persons with no further protections.1356 Such a provision is in violation of the 1961 Statelessness Convention as “public good” is not an acceptable reason to deprive a person of citizenship.1357 Naturalised citizens of Tonga may be deprived of citizenship on very broad grounds (including defamation of the Royal family or any offence which involves dishonesty or fraud) leaving them vulnerable to statelessness.1358 Administrative barriers Administrative barriers to nationality appear to be less prevalent in the Pacific region compared to areas such as East Asia where household registration plays a vital evidentiary role for citizenship. This does not mean that administrative barriers are non-existent, for example in Papua New Guinea children of refugee fathers and Papua New Guinean mothers continue to face both legal and administrative barriers to gaining birth certificates and citizenship.1359 Knowledge on the administrative barriers to citizenship is limited by our lack of country partners across the Pacific and nuisance and contextualised understandings of 120 In several Pacific Islands States, including Fiji1376, Marshall Islands1377, Micronesia1378, Samoa1379, Solomon Islands1380, and Tuvalu1381, birth registration access tends to be lower in rural areas. Due to stigmatization towards single mothers, children of unwed mothers in Kiribati1382, Marshall Islands1383, Samoa1384, Solomon Islands1385, and Tonga1386 tend to either remain unregistered or be registered with inaccurate information regarding the parents. The need for a centralized and streamlined birth registration system has been expressed for Kiribati1387 and Micronesia1388 respectively. Late registration fees in four States (Fiji, Kiribati, Solomon Islands, and Tuvalu) present a barrier to birth registration.1389 In Fiji, wealth of households and maternal age and education level are key factors influencing levels of birth registration among Fijian children.1390Further, i-Taukei speaking households also demonstrated notable disparities in birth registration rates compared to other groups.1391 the practical applications of laws and policies. The lengthy citizenship application process remains an administrative barrier in Australia, where refugees reported waiting on average 215 days for their application to be processed.1360 FIGURE 3 Birth registration rates of the countries in the Pacific 100%1361* (2020) Australia Federated States of Micronesia 70%1362 (2015) Fiji 86%1363 (2021) Kiribati 92%1364 (2019) Marshall Islands 84%1365 (2017) Nauru 96%1366 (2013) New Zealand 100%1367 (2021) Palau 100%1368 (2014) Requirement of birth registration for citizenship acquisition 13%1369 (2018) Papua New Guinea Samoa 67%1370 (2020) Solomon Islands 80%1371 (2007) Tonga 98%1372 (2019) Tuvalu 87%1373 (2020) 43%1374 (2013) Vanuatu 0 20 40 60 80 * Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ birth registration rate was reported at only 77.2% in the same year.1375 Source: “Data Warehouse,” UNICEF DATA; UN Statistics Division, Coverage of Birth and Death Registration’ (February 2021) STATELESSNESS ENCYCLOPEDIA ASIA PACIFIC (DETAILED VERSION) 100 A birth certificate can serve as a form of evidence of citizenship in Australia1392, Fiji1393, Kiribati1394, Nauru1395, New Zealand1396, and Tonga1397. Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Palau, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu do not specify whether birth registration is required for citizenship certification. However, in Vanuatu, lack of birth registration or a birth certificate can mean that a person does not have the documentation they need to determine their citizenship eligibility.1398 In Papua New Guinea1399, Samoa1400, and Solomon Islands1401, a citizenship certificate is needed to prove citizenship. As a region, the Pacific faces some of the greatest risks and has seen the greatest attention regarding the threat of climate-induced statelessness. There are a number of articles and reports written on the risk of statelessness faced by citizens of lowlying Pacific Island States including Kiribati, the Marshall Islands and Tuvalu due to the impact of climate-induced sea-level rise.1402 This risk of statelessness from ‘disappearing States’ currently remains a hypothetical question, with most experts agreeing that this scenario will not inevitably lead to statelessness.1403 Further, before any States ‘disappear’, the impacts of relocation and an increase in displaced populations on communities and individual’s nationality status will need to be faced.1404 It is this displacement across borders rather than the ‘disappearance’ of islands that poses the greatest risk of statelessness in the future. In Tuvalu, gaps in protective legislation against statelessness exist with regard to naturalized citizens subject to climate-induced displacement. Tuvalu’s legislation on loss of citizenship includes a provision which states that naturalized citizens will lose their citizenship of Tuvalu if they do not continue to comply with the requirements of naturalization, which include remaining financially self-supporting.1405 In the event of climate-induced displacement, the affected person may not be able to maintain financial self-sufficiency, making naturalized citizens in this scenario potentially vulnerable to deprivation of citizenship. Tuvalu has, however, enacted new legislation in 2023 which redefines the definition of statehood for Tuvalu.1406 The Constitution provides that the State’s physical territory will remain the same, regardless of rising sea levels, and establishes the country’s intention for “responding to climate change, which threatens the security and survival of its people and its land”.1407 REPORT 2024 121