Statelessness Working Paper Series 2016/08 assistance.19 The consequences are stark for those not in possession of documents. There are repeated stories of IDP women minutes away from giving birth that are denied entry into hospital for a lack of registration papers. Men are refused passage through checkpoints in search of work and children are turned away from school. Possession of divorce or death certificates can make a difference between destitution and moving on with one’s life. According to Iraqi women’s advocates and legal aid attorneys, obtaining legal documentation is also a herculean task involving convoluted procedures, and multiple, in-person visits to far-flung ministries. The processes involved in obtaining documents have a discriminatory impact on women IDPs who lack transport, money and spare time. Further complicating the effort, traditional restrictions on women’s freedom of movement and freedom to consult with a group of men outside of trusted circles, significantly curtails a woman’s ability to discuss issues with administrative officials. It is in this context that advocates rightfully question whether Iraqi women, further burdened by the stigma of sexual violence, will be able to apply for the nationality of children born of an ISIS soldier. 4. A global effort to fight statelessness The international community’s increased interest in the plight of an estimated 15 million20 stateless people is a welcome, albeit much delayed development. Statelessness—now rightly regarded as a human rights issue of first order—is more widely recognized as a cause of political and social instability, and is specifically identified as a challenge to achieving sustainable development.21 Recognizing the broader implications of statelessness, experts and researchers are deepening the discourse on statelessness with provocative questions. They ask, for instance, what is the value of granting legal status or documentation, where discrimination in health care provision, education and other essential services persists? What does it mean that a state claims that individuals from a marginalized group are nationals of the state, and yet effectively or purposely denies them legal documentation? Why does gender discrimination in nationality provision continue even after the laws are reformed, and what are the consequences? For a growing chorus of researchers, advocates, and humanitarian aid and development practitioners, efforts to end statelessness must go beyond law reform to address underlying conditions of inequality, marginalization, and exclusion at the heart of the statelessness experience. In the spirit of cross-disciplinary cooperation, the second half of this working paper provides a rough sketch of how the rule of law might provide a conceptual framework with which to approach the multidimensional challenge of statelessness.22 This paper explores how the promotion of sound legal frameworks, coupled with accountable institutions, and access to justice for stateless individuals, creates the necessary conditions for stateless populations to realize their rights to both nationality and legal identity, but also to essential services, land ownership and political participation. 19 See for example, United States Agency for International Development, Iraq Access to Justice Program Final Report, OCTOBER 1, 2010 – September 30, 2015, available at http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PA00KTXJ.pdf. 20 The Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion has estimated that there are over 15 million stateless people world-wide, when stateless refugees and Palestinians are also included in estimates. See Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion, The World’s Stateless, December 2014, accessed at http://www.institutesi.org/worldsstateless.pdf. 21 See, for example, Guidance Note of the Secretary-General: The United Nations and Statelessness, June 2011; UN Human Rights Council, Human rights and arbitrary deprivation of nationality, 28 June 2012, A/HRC/20/L.9; see also, UN General Assembly, Report of the Secretary-General for the World Humanitarian Summit, 2 February 2016, A/70/709; Amal de Chickera, Statelessness, Human Rights and Development: It's time to Connect the Dots, 8 October 2013, available at: http://www.statelessness.eu/blog/statelessness-human-rights-and-development-its-time-connect-dots. 22 This is certainly not the first time the rule of law has been proposed as a conceptual framework to address statelessness or refugee issues. See UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), Executive Committee of the High Commissioner’s Programme, EC/66/SC/CRP.10, 8 June 2015. 4