Reviewed Article
the Universal declaration of Human Rights states that everyone has a right to a
nationality, which means the very notion of being stateless runs contrary to this
universal basic right. This paper submits that derivation of fundamental rights
especially access to justice is a social justice issue that could be handled through public
interest lawyering. These two- Social Justice and Public Interest Lawyering- form part
of the Clinical Legal Education (CLE) curriculum, therefore a nexus is immediately
formed between CLE and the fight against statelessness. From the results of the
research conducted in this paper, it is recommended that the service component of
CLE, which is the Law Clinics, can assist the UNHCR in the fight against statelessness
in Nigeria by actualising some of their strategies contained in the NAP which include
but not limited to; sensitization and awareness. The UNHCR also raised a red flag on
lack of data on this issue; again, this paper recommends that law clinicians can be their
foot soldiers and aid in gathering the necessary data through client interviews and
outreach activities. Lastly, the benefits of this partnership between the law clinics and
UNHCR to the law clinicians was also outlined, as it will be of extreme benefit to them
and it would lead to the achievement of the ultimate outcome and objective of CLE .
Keywords: Statelessness, Nationality, Identity, Access to Justice, Human Rights, Law
Clinics, Social Justice, Public Interest.
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