Chapter 2. Europe and Statelessness Sarajevo, now married to someone from Zagreb and living in Ljubliana, a Yugoslav, Bosnian, Croat or Slovene citizen? New states emerging from these dissolutions established their own criteria for citizenship. In some cases, people who did not meet those criteria became ‘stateless’; in other cases they failed to acquire citizenship where they lived.”428 The most notable groups of people that remained stateless in the context of state succession included the Roma429 – who were not considered nationals, often were discriminated against and were denied nationality and sometimes even registration – as well as the Russian ethnic minorities in the Baltic States. This last group became stateless because these states applied the principle of state continuity, which In terms of law basically turned back time to before the occupation of the territory by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).430 After its independence from the USSR, Estonia, for instance, reenacted its citizenship law of 1938, last amended in 1940.431 In view of this law, only people who were Estonian citizens before 16 June 1940 and their direct descendants were considered to be Estonians.432 In other words, Estonia adhered to the state continuity principle and maintained that nationality had not ceased to exist because of the illegal occupation.433 For others, who came to Estonia during the Soviet occupation, naturalization was an option. However, this was subject to a number of requirements including knowledge of the Estonian language, which made naturalization practically impossible for the majority of non-Estonians in the territory.434 At the same time, former citizens of the USSR did not acquire the nationality of the Russian Federation.435 Thus, a large number of people remained without a nationality in Estonia. State succession in this context thus created uncertainty about the citizenship status of large groups of people, statelessness and presented states with a significant human rights issue. We also see states differentiating between people: those who met the criteria for citizenship and those who did not, and registering people as such, or even only registering those who acquired citizenship. This particularly created difficulties for ethnic 428 429 430 431 432 433 434 435 UNCHR, The State of the World’s Refugees 2000. Fifty Years of Humanitarian Action (UNHCR/Oxford University Press 2000) 189. Gay McDougall, ‘Minorities and the Discriminatory Denial or Deprivation of Citizenship. Report of the Independent Expert on Minority Issues (15 and 16 December 2008)’ in Gay McDougall, The First United Nations Mandate on Minority Issues (Brill Nijhoff 2016) 328. See eg Ineta Ziemele, State Continuity and Nationality: The Baltic States and Russia. Past, Present and Future as Defined by International Law (Martinus Nijhoff Publishers 2005) 17–43 for an overview of the claims of the three Baltic States to state continuity. Ibid, 146–148; Raivo Vetik, ‘The Statelessness Issue in Estonia’ in Caroline Sawyer & Brad K Blitz, Statelessness in the European Union. Displaced, Undocumented, Unwanted (Cambridge University Press 2011) 230–252, 230–234. Ineta Ziemele, State Continuity and Nationality: The Baltic States and Russia. Past, Present and Future as Defined by International Law (Martinus Nijhoff Publishers 2005) 146. Ibid, 153–154. Raivo Vetik, ‘The Statelessness Issue in Estonia’ in Caroline Sawyer & Brad K. Blitz, Statelessness in the European Union. Displaced, Undocumented, Unwanted (Cambridge University Press 2011) 232. Kees Groenendijk, ‘Nationality, Minorities and Statelessness. The Case of the Baltic States’ (1993) 4 Helsinki Monitor 13, 18. Intersentia 79