Human Rights and Legal Identity: Approaches to Combating Statelessness and Arbitrary Deprivation of Nationality

A clear pattern has emerged from case studies around the world of states manipulating citizenship, in either law or practice, to marginalize and disenfranchise vulnerable groups such as racial and ethnic minorities and women. This occurs in flagrant violation of well-established human rights principles, particularly the universal anti-discrimination norm.

In order to combat statelessness and the discriminatory manipulation of race and ethnicity in granting, withholding, and withdrawing nationality, the Open Society Justice Initiative calls for the development of a comprehensive approach to enforce the prohibitions on discrimination, statelessness, and arbitrary deprivation of nationality and the creation of an effective institutional framework that will guarantee the universal right to a nationality.

This Open Society Justice Initiative publication discusses the contemporary crisis of statelessness and proposes an agenda for action.