CYELP 16 [2020] 301-317 307 (‘nation, territory and state’), defined the concept of ‘the right to have rights’, which indeed means the right to membership of a political community.15 People deprived of citizenship are not able to exercise the list of human rights because only members of society organised in a state have the means of practically exercising them.16 This concept remains relevant today. Stateless persons, despite the fact that they remain subjects of natural rights (such as the right to life, the right to freedom, the right to property, etc), have a limited right to political participation in the country of residence, and thus limited protection of human rights. That is why it must not be forgotten that they should have the effective right to become citizens. 3 Statelessness in Europe in the context of the migration crisis The problem of statelessness became more important with the widespread implementation of citizenship by states in the nineteenth century. It diffused in Europe after World War I, and intensified after World War II, as a result of a new division of borders and the creation of new states.17 Currently, the problem has been exacerbated by the influx of several million people since 2015, mainly from the Middle East and Africa, caused by armed conflicts and human rights violations as a result of civil and international wars during the so-called Arab Spring which took place nearly 10 years ago. The reason for the outbreak of these wars was the dissatisfaction of societies with living conditions, unemployment, rising food prices, longstanding authoritarian rule, the corruption and nepotism of the authorities, and widespread violation of human rights by regimes. As a result, civilians began to seek refuge en masse, first in neighbouring countries, and then in countries that were not their first countries of refuge − in wealthier Europe. From 2015 to 2017, over two-thirds of asylum seekers were taken in by Germany (almost 1.5 million people), Italy (over 330,000 people) and France (over 250,000 peo- 15 Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (Harcourt Books 1994) 297. 16 See Alison Kesby, The Right to Have Rights: Citizenship, Humanity, and International Law (OUP 2012); Peg Birmingham, Hannah Arendt and Human Rights: The Predicament of Common Responsibility (Indiana University Press 2006); Giorgio Agamben, ‘We Refugees’ (1995) 49(2) Symposium: A Quarterly Journal in Modern Literatures 114; Nanda Oudejans, ‘The Right to Have Rights as the Right to Asylum’ (2014) 43(1) Netherlands Journal of Legal Philosophy 7; David Owen, ‘On the Right to Have Nationality Rights: Statelessness, Citizenship and Human Rights’ (2018) 65(3) Netherlands International Law Review 299; Andrew Schaap, ‘Enacting the Right to Have Rights: Jacques Rancière’s Critique of Hannah Arendt’ (2011) 10(1) European Journal of Political Theory 22. 17 See Paul Weis and Rudolf Graupner, The Problem of Statelessness (British Section of the World Jewish Congress 1944); Gerard Daniel Cohen, In War’s Wake: Europe’s Displaced Persons in the Postwar Order (OUP 2011).