2019
Statelessness & Citizenship Review
1(2)
potential than it is to resolve a problem once created. No state needs to live with
this risk, or to put its citizens at risk given the available tools.
PROVIDING ANNUAL DATA ON STATELESSNESS
To resolve cases, to manage risks, and to ensure a continuous effort to avoid and
address statelessness, it is imperative that all states adopt effective systems to
report on statelessness issues.
In closing, an increasing change in perception with regard to nationality itself
might also be noted. Is this an exclusive sovereign determination when it is also
an individual right? Does it make sense that states maintain very distinct and often
incompatible approaches to something that is so critical to individual survival,
having a nationality? As we move toward the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable
Development and the Sustainable Development Goals, 27 will the need for legal
identity for all result in nationality for all? There are many ways in which people,
communities, societies as well as nations determine their identity. While it has
been suggested that nationality status is but a legal construct that is not
determinative of an individual’s or of a nation’s aspirations, most of these
aspirations are fully dependent on having the legal identity to begin with. The
#IBelong Campaign presents a long-awaited opportunity to develop our notions of
nationality and identity, to evolve our thinking regarding belonging and to advance
not only legal, but also societal and cultural constructs that will stand the test of
time in ending statelessness as a tolerated and marginalised condition. Every effort
must be made toward this end.
27
Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, UN Doc
A/RES/70/1 (21 October 2015).
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