SEEKING NATIONALITY THE JUDICIAL ODYSSEY OF APPLICANTS INTRODUCTION According to international human rights laws every person should be entitled to hold a nationality. Yet, today, the phenomenon of statelessness is still there as the number of stateless persons worldwide is estimated to be 12 million today1. A stateless person is defined as “a person who is not considered as a national by any state under the operation of its law”2. Based on international law definition of statelessness, the number of stateless persons in Lebanon is estimated to be more than 503. There is no official statistics as to their exact number. The causes for their statelessness vary between historical and administrative reasons. Some are stateless because they did not register during the population census in 1932, and others is due to a number of reasons including discriminatory related laws. This phenomenon is not confined to old ongoing phenomenon but has rather turned into a recurrent phenomenon which has expanded to include new categories. Today, it is no longer limited to people of Lebanese origins, but includes children of migrant workers or refugees residing illegally in Lebanon. Despite the vastness of this ongoing phenomenon and the extent of the implications arising therefrom, in terms of the large category of people who are stripped of any protection and rights, it has not yet warranted a place among the Lebanese State’s concerns and has not received the sufficient required political and legislative attention to seek solutions for it. It is even ignored by all societal spectrum (government, parliamentarians, local authorities, political leaders, lawyers, civil servants, social care institutions, and the civil society organizations). The phenomenon of statelessness did not attract the interest and attention even of the academic and research institutions to research and study the stateless population from the different angles and the impact of their situation in terms of human rights and development. This is reflected in the fact there is a huge lack of information and studies on the origin, profiles, volume, and the socio-economic conditions of the stateless population in Lebanon, let alone official statistics. Furthermore, the stateless population lack legal protection. The Lebanese Constitution does not enshrine any protection against statelessness. Lebanon also does not have a legal framework for stateless persons. As such, stateless people are deprived of legal protection due to their lack of legal status, and are thus deprived of political, economic and social rights and protection. They are invisible citizens4. Further, the Lebanese Nationality law5 and the Registration of civil personal Status law6 in force today are not comprehensive and cause statelessness for certain categories of the population. For instance, the Nationality Law discriminates against Lebanese women by not giving them the right to pass their nationality to their children – with the exception of single mothers – has negative consequences when the child is born to a stateless father. On the other hand, the Lebanese nationality law contains some provisions that guarantee the prevention of a person to become stateless. This is the case if a child is born in Lebanon to parents who did not acquire and/or unable to acquire another nationality, or to unknown parents7, or a child born to a Lebanese parent out of wedlock are by the law Lebanese if recognized by one of the parents8. However, these provisions are not implemented automatically by the administration under various unfounded arguments that make these provisions “silent” today. Further, the Law on Registration of Civil Personal Status issued in early 1950s does not include the registration of personal events of stateless persons. As such they have no records with the Administration. Legally, they are invisible citizens. In addition, this law puts on the individuals the responsibility to carry out the registration of their civil events with the administration. As for the registration of the birth, this should be done within one year from date of birth and if they fail to do so, children become stateless until they recourse to courts to register the children by a court order. There are hundreds of children born to a Lebanese father whose birth were not declared by their parents within the legal period for many reasons and who ended up without a nationality. Some of those children have inherited their statelessness from several stateless generations which makes it harder and more expensive to resolve this issue in courts. Children born in Lebanon to non-nationals may become stateless too. Today, stateless children born to foreign national are estimated to be in hundreds. The cause of their statelessness is due to the legal provisions that distinguish between legal and illegal residency. Foreigners in irregular residency situation cannot register their civil events with the Lebanese Civil registration (Register of Foreigners), unless they regularize their legal residency status. For the majority of foreign nationals, this procedure is a prerequisite to complete SEEKING NATIONALITY | INTRODUCTION FRONTIERS RIGHTS 18