The Arrival of ‘Statelessness Studies’
on the potential curative effects of the operation of Haitian law has erased
statelessness from the official statistics, and while this does nothing to undermine
claims about the systematic discrimination perpetrated by the Dominican
Republic, it does have the effect of dulling the critique of those abusive actions.
I have felt this tension in my own legal scholarship, through which I have
interrogated the statelessness definition, and argued for a progressive
understanding of this definition in a manner that stays true to its legal rationale. 15
My scholarship to date does little to inquire, in a systematic way, into the sociopolitical forces that create statelessness, nor does it interrogate the psycho-social
impacts of statelessness on people’s lives. Indeed, I depend on the work of my
colleagues in the social sciences for an ever-deepening understanding of the causes
and effects of statelessness, and to inform a critique of the legal rationale to which
I am faithful. It is not evident to me that legal scholarship, in this case my own, is
the most effective venue to develop these necessary critiques. However, if I
embrace the multi-disciplinary approach to the study of statelessness, I can readily
use such critiques from other disciplines to refine my own inquiry.
My hope is that this very personal example will help to make my case for a
multi-disciplinary approach. The field of stateless studies is in its infancy, and we
have yet to take full advantage of its multi-disciplinary character, but we have the
opportunity at this juncture to recognise the strength that we draw from a diversity
of perspectives and commit to it. I have little doubt that this is the only way to
begin to address a problem as confounding as statelessness.
If one agrees statelessness studies should be an explicitly multi-disciplinary
field, the question becomes how to institutionalise this approach? Of course, this
question must be answered differently for each academic institution, which will
have a unique set of considerations in terms of internal politics and resources.
Where there is both political will and the capacity to commit institutional resources
to the study of statelessness, a statelessness course is the first step.
I have never taught a course on statelessness, but would like to suggest that
such a course could include:
(1) the history of statelessness;
(2) theories of the nation state and statelessness;
(3) the legal framework for the protection of stateless persons;
(4) statelessness determination mechanisms and jurisprudence;
(5) forced migration and statelessness;
(6) minority rights and in situ statelessness; and
(7) stateless ethnographies.
This proposal is admittedly law heavy, which reflects my own disciplinary lean.
Presumably any instructor could develop the course to offer more from their own
15
See, eg, David Baluarte, ‘The Risk of Statelessness: Reasserting a Rule for the Protection of
the Right to Nationality’ (2017) 19(1–2) Yale Human Rights and Development Law Journal
47. See also David Baluarte, ‘Life after Limbo: Stateless Persons in the United States and the
Role of International Protection in Achieving a Legal Solution’ (2015) 29 Georgetown
Immigration Law Journal 351.
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