The African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights also does not contain an explicit provision on the right to nationality. The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights has found, however, that the right to nationality is implied within the protection of legal status provided for in Article 5 of the African Charter (u section 7.8 Birth registration and legal identity, subheading on Dignity, (legal) identity and recognition as a person before the law). In addition, the Commission has found violations of the right to family life in multiple cases relating to arbitrary deprivation of nationality.399 Inhuman treatment and the right to a remedy in the context of immigration detention and precarious status Stateless people all too often find themselves caught up in repeated or perpetual immigration proceedings, including indefinite detention, unable to fulfil the requirements placed on them to demonstrate their connection to a country of nationality—whether the state of residence or another state to which they can be deported—or to a country of origin which would provide a basis to claim refugee status.400 In other cases, stateless persons are denied a secure residence status and threatened with deportation to a country where they have no recognised nationality, despite risks of inhuman treatment in that country, and their stronger connections to the country where they live. Immigration detention and inhuman treatment of migrants and the right to a remedy for such treatment has been a frequent subject of litigation401 and is not generally considered here.402 Cases relating specifically to detention of or attempts to deport stateless persons include:  In the case of Kim v. Russia decided in 2014, the European Court of Human Rights found, unanimously, that there had been violations of the prohibition on cruel and inhuman treatment and of the right to liberty and security on account of the stateless applicant’s conditions of detention and the lack of adequate review procedures for detention pending expulsion. The Court considered that Russia had to introduce a mechanism to permit persons detained for expulsion to challenge their detention, and to take steps to prevent the applicant from being rearrested and detained because of his status as a stateless person.403  In the case of Shoygo v. Ukraine the European Court of Human Rights considered the obligations of the state to take steps to confirm the nationality of a person who had never held any identity documents but claimed to be Russian, and who had been held in immigration detention for almost a year, finding that Ukraine had violated the right to a remedy under Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights.404  In 2019, the Committee on the Rights of the Child considered the case of a stateless child of a Palestinian mother with irregular migration status in Switzerland, finding that the best interests of the child had not been respected when considering the mother’s asylum request in Switzerland, where her brother had a legal residence status, and that the child ran a real risk of being subject to inhuman and degrading treatment in case of a return to Bulgaria, where his mother had previously held a subsidiary protected status but they had been detained in very bad conditions. The child would not have access to appropriate measures for physical and psychological rehabilitation in case of return to Bulgaria.405  In 2014, the Austrian Constitutional Court found that it would be a violation of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights to expel a stateless person of Roma ethnic origin, with parents from former Yugoslavia, who was born, grew up, and worked his entire life in Austria.406  In a 2023 judgment concerning a stateless Rohingya man who was born in Myanmar in the mid-1990s, the 399 Amnesty International v. Zambia, supra n 324; Modise v. Botswana, supra n 296; Legal Resources Foundation v. Zambia supra n 277; Kenneth Good v. Republic of Botswana, supra n 387. Amal de Chickera, Unravelling Anomaly: Detention, Discrimination and the Protection Needs of Stateless Persons (London: Equal Rights Trust, 2010), https://www. equalrightstrust.org/ertdocumentbank/UNRAVELLING%20ANOMALY%20small%20file.pdf; Handbook on Protection of Stateless Persons, supra n 2; UNHCR, ‘Stateless Persons in Detention: A Tool for Their Identification and Enhanced Protection’, 2017, https://www.refworld.org/docid/598adacd4.html. See also UNHCR, Guidelines on the Applicable Criteria and Standards relating to the Detention of Asylum-Seekers and Alternatives to Detention, 2012, http://www.refworld.org/docid/503489533b8.htm. 400 See, for example, the landmark case of Khlaifia and others v. Italy, Application no. 16483/12, European Court of Human Rights [GC], Judgment of 15 December 2016: https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-170054. 401 For guidance on immigration detention, see UNHCR, Guidelines on the Applicable Criteria and Standards relating to the Detention of Asylum-Seekers and Alternatives to Detention, 2012, www.refworld.org/policy/legalguidance/unhcr/2012/en/87776; UNHCR, Stateless Persons in Detention: A tool for their identification and enhanced protection, June 2017, www.refworld.org/policy/opguidance/unhcr/2017/en/117659; and UNHCR, Unlocking rights: towards ending immigration detention for asylum-seekers and refugees, September 2024, https://www.refworld.org/policy/polrec/unhcr/2024/en/148655. 402 Kim v. Russia, Application no. 44260/13, European Court of Human Rights, judgment of 17 July 2014 https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/fre?i=002-9579; Case summary at European Network on Statelessness case law database: https://caselaw.statelessness.eu/caselaw/ecthr-kim-v-russia. 403 404 Shoygo v. Ukraine, Application no. 29662/13, European Court of Human Rights, judgment of 30 September 2021 https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-212003. Case summary at European Network on Statelessness case law database: https://caselaw.statelessness.eu/caselaw/ecthr-shoygo-v-ukraine. 405 A.M. (on behalf of M.K.A.H.) v. Switzerland, CRC/C/88/D/95/2019, UN Committee on the Rights of the Child views adopted 6 October 2021, https://juris. ohchr.org/casedetails/2957/en-US. 406 Judgment of 6 March 2014, in case U2131/2012. Case summary at: https://caselaw.statelessness.eu/caselaw/austria-constitutional-court-case-6march-2014. 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