Eliminating Statelessness and Assuring the Right to Belong: Can We Do Both?
Statelessness, the condition of not being considered a national by any state under operation of its laws, constitutes a continuing and significant human rights violation. Statelessness often results from a malfunctioning human rights regime where states reserve for their citizens protections such as access to healthcare, education, and employment. Surely, a guarantee of nationality for stateless persons should reap substantial improvements from a human rights perspective. During my time as a student attorney in the International Human Rights Clinic (the “IHRC”), however, I’ve come to question whether nationality, as the right exists in international law, always delivers such human rights advances. Statelessness is undoubtedly a problem — but does nationality necessarily equate to effective citizenship?
#IBelong is UNHCR’s global campaign to end statelessness. #IBelong launched in 2014 with an “aim[] to end statelessness in ten years.” The campaign’s central goal is to ensure that states extend nationality — both retroactively, to persons who are currently stateless, and proactively, so that no child is born stateless. But with two years left on #IBelong’s countdown, the quest to end statelessness has revealed itself as a much longer-term and more complex undertaking than initially assumed. An external evaluation of #IBelong noted that while the campaign’s ambitions are commendable, its focus on administrative and technical impediments to acquiring citizenship overlooks the many political and socio-cultural factors contributing to statelessness globally.
I, too, argue that #IBelong’s approach has been too narrow — but from a different perspective. The campaign is built on the idea that having a nationality affords the right to belong. But nationality and belonging do not necessarily go hand-in-hand. Statelessness is not the only way by which a person — or community — might be deprived of the right to belong; a closer look reveals that in some cases, the conferral of citizenship may serve as the foundation for a state’s deprivation of a group’s political and cultural self-determination. In these cases, having a nationality does not equate to effective citizenship. Effective citizenship, I would argue, is realized by citizens who are able to express, preserve, and practice their culture — regardless of whether it differs from the majority’s. Until statelessness is remedied by effective citizenship, acquiring a nationality will not necessarily assure the right to belong.
The work done by two of three teams in the IHRC further illustrates my point. One team advocates for Tibet, the other works to understand and report on statelessness across the MENA. I have had the unique experience of floating between these two teams. As I’ve become familiar with both projects, I’ve seen ways in which the absence of formal statelessness does not guarantee effective citizenship, but, rather, allows for a dilution of group identity.
Chinese Citizenship as a means to Sinicize and Erase Tibetan Culture
After China occupied Tibet in 1950, Tibetans lost their political independence and acquired Chinese citizenship. Though many Tibetans in Tibet do not consider themselves to be Chinese and urge for their right to self-governance, from the international legal standpoint, Tibetans living in Tibet are not stateless. China considers Tibet a part of China and Tibetans citizens of China under international law (1954 Convention, Art. 1).
Of course, foreign occupation or conquest does not equate with a reduction of statelessness. This case, however, is a powerful example of how the attribution of citizenship might pave the way for human rights violations at the hands of the state. Long before Tibet was occupied by China, it had its own culture, language, and self-government, but was not an internationally recognized nation-state. China’s absorption of Tibet made Tibetans Chinese citizens and added the Tibetan nationality to the constituent groups of the Chinese state. But with Chinese citizenship, came the deprivation of self-determination and cultural autonomy. Under China’s siege, Tibetans are criminalized for preserving their culture and expressing dissent. Tibetans are not even permitted to celebrate the birthday of their spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, without fear of retribution.
China’s recognition of Tibetans as Chinese citizens is a necessary foundation for China’s treatment of Tibetans. Even beyond Tibet, Chinese citizens who deviate from majority culture are classified as “extremists” and viewed as a threat to China’s national identity. China strives to confine and restrict such “extremism” by throwing ethno-religious minorities in detention centers and so-called “re-education camps” to reaffirm commitment to the national values that coincide with Chinese citizenship. The Xinjiang De-extremification Regulations of 2017 (“the Regulations”) further illustrate China’s attempts to erase autonomy — this time directed against the Uyghurs, an ethno-religious minority residing primarily in the northwest region of Xinjiang. Article 35 of the Regulations is particularly striking; it mandates a rejection of “extremist religious ideology” to “confirm correct faith, reject extremism, and be law abiding citizens.”
Instead of providing its recipients with a sense of belonging, Chinese citizenship is used for social, political, and cultural manipulation. The result is a forced dilution and attempted erasure of minority culture.
Naturalization in the MENA as a Dilution of the Palestinian Right of Return?
Today, Palestinians comprise one of the largest stateless groups in the world. Following World War I and the fall of the Ottoman Empire, Palestinians were deemed citizens of Palestine by the British Government. But when the British Mandate withdrew and Israel was founded, a large number of Palestinians were rendered stateless in 1948. Since then, Palestinians have been residing primarily as refugees in Palestinian territories and surrounding host countries such as Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria.
The complex relationship between Tibetans and citizenship is somewhat mirrored in the Palestinian diaspora, though there are important distinctions. The situation of Palestinians who stayed and became citizens of Israel is analogous to that of Tibetans in Tibet. Though they are technically citizens of a recognized nation-state, their identity and historical lands have been claimed by Israel. While Palestinian citizens of Israel are not stateless from an international legal standpoint, they nonetheless face institutionalized discrimination as a result of the state’s attempted erasure of their group identity. In 2018, exclusion of Palestinians by the Israeli state was adopted into Israel’s constitution when it declared Israel as a “nation state of the Jewish people.”
In contrast, displaced Palestinians’ identity as exiled Arabs prompts a pushing-away by recognized Arab states, rather than absorption. Palestinian refugees have been characterized as a “nation in exile” — many Palestinian refugees reside in camps or neighborhoods distinguishable from their surrounding cities. Though most Palestinian refugees share language, religion, and a sense of cultural familiarity with neighboring states, Palestinian refugees are marginalized due to their political-legal status.
Preserving displaced Palestinians’ status as refugees has been justified on grounds that it preserves Palestinian culture and the Palestinian claim to sovereignty over territories lost to Israel. Many MENA states where Palestinian refugees find themselves have taken the official stance that naturalizing Palestinian refugees could disrupt, and potentially liquidate the legal basis for, the Palestinian “right of return.” In fact, this has been one reason given by some MENA states to justify their abstention from the ’51 Convention and ’67 Protocol. These states claim that their refusal to naturalize Palestinians in exile preserves Palestinians’ refugee status, which, in turn, preserves their claim to one day return to present-day Israel under UNGA Resolution 194.
Concluding Thoughts
In China, citizenship is used in pursuit of a functionally homogenous national identity; as a result, ethno-religious minorities are penalized as extremists, and permitted limited and superficial cultural self-expression. In the MENA, the effects of citizenship on Palestinians can be analyzed from two standpoints. Palestinian citizens of Israel face institutional discrimination as the state of which they are nationals attempts to erase their group identity. Displaced Palestinians maintain refugee status, with Arab states’ withholding of citizenship justified, at least in part, as a way to preserve one piece of Palestinian culture.
#IBelong’s aims are commendable, but until statelessness is reduced via the conferral of effective citizenship, the reduction of statelessness will only ensure the right to belong in a nominal sense. To simultaneously reduce statelessness and protect the right to belong, we must first ensure that citizenship neither imposes nor revokes cultural identity. In an ever-changing and evolving world, more and more persons of different cultures coexist within the bounds of each nation-state. If citizens are made to conform to majority culture or sacrifice key elements of their group identity in exchange for nationality, I fear that working for a reduction of statelessness may undercut what it means to truly belong.
Author Bio: Anneke Virk is a second-year student at Boston University School of Law. Prior to law school, Anneke earned a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Chapman University. Anneke’s decision to pursue a legal degree was shaped largely by a desire to advocate for marginalized communities; she hopes to use many of the skills developed in the International Human Rights Clinic in her pro bono work upon completion of her J.D.
