The International Human Rights Obligations of Ukraine 9) Ukraine acceded to the 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons (1954 Convention) and the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness (1961 Convention) in March 2013. It is also party to core human rights treaties in which provisions relating to nationality and statelessness are enshrined. These include the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the 1969 Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination, the 1979 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, and the 1989 Convention on the rights of the Child (CRC). Ukraine also ratified the European Convention on Nationality in 2006. 10) Ukraine has not yet ratified the Convention on the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families. 11) Ukraine has additional international and regional obligations to protect the liberty and security of all persons and to protect against arbitrary and unlawful detention. These obligations derive from the ICCPR (Article 9) and the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR, Article 5), which protect the right to liberty and security of the person and freedom from arbitrary detention. Importantly, Article 26 of the 1954 Convention additionally requires States to permit stateless persons “lawfully in” their territory to choose their place of residence and move freely within the State.9 Statelessness in Ukraine 12) There is no reliable data on the exact size of Ukraine’s stateless population as the scope of the problem has never been thoroughly mapped. According to Ukraine’s 2001 census, 82,600 persons claimed to be stateless and another 40,400 persons did not specify their citizenship. 10 According to the State Migration Service of Ukraine, as of 2015, 5,159 stateless persons had permanent residence permits and 574 had temporary residence permits in Ukraine. The Ukrainian Government does not keep a record of irregular stateless persons residing in Ukraine and does not have an official statelessness determination procedure in place. In 2015, UNHCR estimates of the stateless population in Ukraine ranged from 35,22811 to 45,87712. Either figure makes this one of the largest stateless populations in Europe. 13) Despite the lack of accurate statistical date, it is possible to categorise the stateless population in Ukraine into four main groups as follows: 1. 9 Those who became stateless or were at risk of statelessness due to state succession in the aftermath of the dissolution of the USSR in 1991. Notwithstanding certain legal safeguards in the Law of Ukraine “On Citizenship of Ukraine” for persons with USSR passports, there remain a In line with UNHCR observations the drafting history of the 1954 Convention affirms that persons who have applied to remain in a country based on their statelessness are ‘lawfully in’ that country. UNHCR, Handbook on Protection of Stateless Persons (30 June 2014, ‘UNHCR Statelessness Handbook’), para 135. Available at http://www.refworld.org/docid/53b676aa4.html. 10 First All-National Population Census: historical, methodological, social, economic, ethnic aspects. - The Institute for Demography and Social Studies of the NAS of Ukraine, the State Statistic Committee of Ukraine. – 2004. - P. 109 http://2001.ukrcensus.gov.ua/d/mono_eng.pdf. 11 UNHCR Population Statistics. - http://popstats.unhcr.org/en/persons_of_concern. 12 UNHCR Populations. - http://globalfocus-interim.unhcr.org/population. 4