Statelessness

In international law, a stateless person is someone who is "not considered as a national by any state under the operation of its law". Some stateless people are also refugees. However, not all refugees are stateless, and many people who are stateless have never crossed an international border. At the end of 2022, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees published an estimation of 4.4 million people worldwide as either stateless or of undetermined nationality, which is 90,800 (or 2%) more than at the end of 2021¹. However, the data itself is not complete because UNHCR does not have data from many countries, such as from at least 22 countries where mass statelessness exists. The data also does not include de facto stateless people who have no legal identification to prove their nationality or legal existence. According to the World Bank, at least 850 million fit that category. The status of a person who might be stateless ultimately depends on the viewpoint of the state with respect to the individual or a group of people. In some cases, the state makes its view clear and explicit; in others, its viewpoint is harder to discern. In those cases, one may need to rely on prima facie evidence of the view of the state, which in turn may give rise to a presumption of statelessness.

In international law, a stateless person is someone who is "not considered as a national by any state under the operation of its law". Some stateless people are also refugees. However, not all refugees are stateless, and many people who are stateless have never crossed an international border. At the end of 2022, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees published an estimation of 4.4 million people worldwide as either stateless or of undetermined nationality, which is 90,800 (or 2%) more than at the end of 2021. However, the data itself is not complete because UNHCR does not have data from many countries, such as from at least 22 countries where mass statelessness exists. The data also does not include de facto stateless people who have no legal identification to prove their nationality or legal existence. According to the World Bank, at least 850 million fit that category. The status of a person who might be stateless ultimately depends on the viewpoint of the state with respect to the individual or a group of people. In some cases, the state makes its view clear and explicit; in others, its viewpoint is harder to discern. In those cases, one may need to rely on prima facie evidence of the view of the state, which in turn may give rise to a presumption of statelessness. ===In antiquity=== Some scholars have identified statuses in the ancient world that are partly analogous to modern statelessness, though the comparison is imprecise, since nationality in the modern legal sense did not exist. In classical Athens, resident foreigners held the status of metic (metoikos): they were free but could not own land, vote in the assembly or hold office, and were required to pay a poll tax (metoikion) and to have a citizen sponsor (prostates). Under Pericles' citizenship law of 451/450 BC, citizenship required two Athenian parents, so metic status passed to descendants regardless of how long a family had lived in the city, creating a permanent non-citizen population. In Rome, legal status likewise determined a person's treatment before the law. Crucifixion was regarded as a servile punishment, used chiefly against slaves, non-citizens and rebels, and Cicero treated the crucifixion of a Roman citizen as a notorious abuse of power in his prosecution of Verres. ==By country== ===Australia=== , Australia had 37 stateless people in onshore detention, who had been detained for an average of 2 years and 106 days and the longest was 3 years and 250 days. The number of stateless people in offshore detention is unknown. There were a further 57 stateless people living in the community after being approved for a residence determination. In Australia, statelessness is not itself a ground for grant of a visa and the person must instead rely upon other grounds, such as being a refugee. Notable cases include: Ahmed Al-Kateb, a Palestinian man born in Kuwait who was denied a visa on arrival in Australia in 2000¹ and did not meet the requirements of a refugee. Al-Kateb wished to return to Kuwait or Gaza. However, Kuwait would not accept him (as he was not a Kuwaiti citizen or resident) and there was no state of Palestine recognized by Australia at that time. To return him to Gaza required the approval of Israel. The High Court of Australia held in Al-Kateb v Godwin that his detention was lawful, even though it would continue indefinitely. Al-Kateb and eight other stateless people were granted bridging visas in 2005 and, while this meant they were released from detention, they were unable to work, study or obtain various government benefits. Al-Kateb was granted a permanent visa in October 2007. 'Baby Ferouz' was born in November 2013¹ to Rohingya Muslim parents who had fled from Myanmar, which did not recognise them as citizens. His parents and siblings were being held at the Nauru Detention Centre, but the family was flown to Brisbane due to complications in pregnancy, with the result that baby Ferouz was born in Australia. From 1986, Australia has not automatically granted citizenship to people born in Australia, despite the provision in the 1961¹ Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness requiring nationality to be given to children born in a territory who would otherwise be stateless. As baby Ferouz was deemed to be an unauthorised maritime arrival, he could not be given a protection visa. In December 2014 he and his family were given a temporary protection visa which allowed them to be released from immigration detention. Said Imasi is believed to be from Western Sahara and had been granted a protection visa in Norway in 2004. In January 2010 he had a one-way ticket to New Zealand, traveling on a friend's passport, and was detained on a stop-over in Melbourne. His application for a refugee visa was refused because he did not have a "well-founded fear of persecution" in Norway. Because he has no visa to be in Australia and there is no country to which he can be returned, Imasi has been in immigration detention since January 2010, spending several years at the Christmas Island Detention Centre and later at the Villawood Immigration Detention Centre in Sydney. As of May 2023, Imasi has been released under unknown conditions. ===Bahrain=== Many individuals in Bahrain, called Bidoon, do not have a nationality. A number of people have also had their citizenship revoked and are now stateless; the revocation took place after they criticised the Bahraini government. This situation also occurs in other Middle Eastern countries. ===Saudi Arabia=== Dissidents and other people can have their citizenship revoked. Osama bin Laden was asked to hand in his passport in the 1990s. Milbrandt, Jay. Stateless, 2011 Open Society Foundations and Refugees International, Without Citizenship: Statelessness, Discrimination, and Repression in Kuwait , 2011 Shiblak, Abbas. "Stateless Palestinians"; Siegelberg, Mira L. 2020. Statelessness: A Modern History. Harvard University Press. Somers, Margaret. 2008. Genealogies of Citizenship: Markets, Statelessness, and the Right to Have Rights. Cambridge University Press, Stateless: The World's Most Invisible People; . Reuters AlertNet, 2011 UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) 2012 The State of the World's Refugees: In Search of Solidarity. Man without a nation-documentary film

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