STATELESSNESS AND CITIZENSHIP IN THE EAST AFRICAN COMMUNITY Refugees, former refugees and internally displaced persons Most refugees are not stateless: although they lack the protection of their state of nationality, this is presumed to be a temporary situation. Some refugees may also be stateless; and in some cases lack of recognition of nationality may be one of the reasons for the person’s flight or expulsion and for the difficulty of return: in East Africa this would apply especially to the Banyarwanda of Eastern Congo, whose status as Congolese has been contested for many decades.149 Refugees registered with UNHCR usually receive both a UN document and a document issued by a national refugee agency (the institutional structures vary) recognising their refugee status, which state their country of origin and/or nationality (and in principle also indicate that they are stateless, if that is the case). For those refugees who return home within a few years such documentation is usually sufficient to provide them with proof of nationality on return. For refugees in a “protracted” situation the question of documentation becomes steadily more difficult. This is the case especially for those who fled into a neighbouring country and never registered as refugees. For those born outside the country of origin of their parents, access to documents in the parents’ country of origin may also be of limited use, if their lives are established elsewhere. Those who do not cross an international border may in some ways be even worse affected by lack of documents, since they are much less likely to be registered by an international or national agency at the time of displacement, but equally likely to be affected by loss or destruction of their existing documents and the dispersal of community leaders who could vouch for a person’s identity. Displaced children separated from their parents are the most vulnerable of all. The 1951 Refugee Convention provides for “cessation clauses” which set out the situations in which refugee status may properly come to an end. One of these clauses refers to “ceased circumstances”, where the situation in the country of origin has changed sufficiently to make return possible. For this clause to be applicable, there must have been a change in the refugee’s country of origin which is “fundamental, durable, and effective”. In such cases, UNHCR may issue a statement that, as a group, refugees from that country no longer have a well-founded fear of being persecuted (though individuals may rebut the presumption, so that the application of the clause should always be individually assessed).150 UNHCR will then typically enter into agreements with the countries of origin and refuge for repatriation or local integration of the refugees (resettlement in a third country is unlikely to be possible at this time). There is, however, no requirement on the host countries to follow the recommendation that the ceased circumstances clause should apply, and repatriation agreements are often entered into without formal reference to “ceased circumstances”. Since 2010, the ceased circumstances clause has been invoked in Africa for refugees from Sierra Leone (at the end of 2008), Angola and Liberia (in 2012) and Rwanda (in 2013). The status of former Rwandan refugees is of most concern in East Africa.151 The decision to invoke the ceased circumstances provision in the case of Rwanda was controversial, on the grounds of continued fear of persecution by some refugees from that country.152 The recommendation applied only to those who left the country from 1959 to 1998, while it is open to any refugee to apply on an individual basis for continuing protection. Some Rwandan refugees thus retain their status even in countries that have accepted the recommendation to invoke the cessation clause; 149 Bronwen Manby, Struggles for Citizenship in Africa, Zed Books, 2009; Bronwen Manby, Citizenship in Africa: The Law of Belonging, Hart Publishing, 2018. 150 UNHCR ExCom Conclusion No. 69 (XLIII), Cessation of Status, 1992; The Cessation Clauses: Guidelines on their Application, UNHCR, Geneva, April 1999. 151 “Implementation of the Comprehensive Strategy for the Rwandan Refugee Situation, including UNHCR's recommendations on the Applicability of the ‘ceased circumstances' Cessation Clauses", UNHCR, 31 December 2011. 152 Rwanda: Cessation of Refugee Status is Unwarranted, FAHAMU, 22 September 2011; Barbara Harrell-Bond and Guillaume Cliche-Rivard, “Rwandan refugees face no choice but repatriation”, OpenDemocracy.Net, 10 May 2012; “No consensus on implementation of cessation clause for Rwandan refugees”, IRIN, 12 July 2013. UNHCR / September 2018 41