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Worldwide, an estimated 12 million people have no nationality. In other words, they are
stateless. Statelessness is a problem because possessing a nationality means that there is at
least one country where one has the right to reside. Nationality confers a number of other
important rights too: the right to identity documents, for example, or the right to return
to your own country. Without papers proving who you are, it can be difficult to marry,
enter into contracts or acquire diplomas. In addition, possessing a nationality makes a
person a member of a particular political community. For all these reasons, the right to
nationality is enshrined as a fundamental human right in the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights.
To protect the stateless and to prevent statelessness, the international community
concluded two major instruments: the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of
Stateless Persons and the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. The
Netherlands is a party to both. This means that it has obligations towards stateless
persons living in the Netherlands and towards stateless children born on Dutch territory.
In addition, it means that, with certain exceptions, the Netherlands may not deprive
people of their Dutch nationality if they would then become stateless.
The United Nations has mandated UNHCR to protect the rights of stateless people
and to prevent and reduce statelessness. Within this framework, it published in
November 2011 a report entitled Mapping Statelessness in the Netherlands. The report’s
main conclusion was that the identification of stateless persons in the Netherlands is
problematic and that, as a result, the rights of such persons living in this country are not
guaranteed. The then Minister of the Interior and Kingdom Relations and the Minister
for Immigration, Integration and Asylum Policy refuted this conclusion in October 2012.
The UNHCR report and the ministers’ response prompted the ACVZ to draw up an
advisory report on statelessness. The State Secretary of Security and Justice supported
this decision with a letter requesting an advisory report on 14 November 2012.
This advisory report relates solely to persons who are not considered as nationals by
any state under the operation of its law. These people are also known as ‘de jure stateless
persons’. Earlier this year the ACVZ published its advisory report Where there’s a will but
no way on the policy concerning aliens who, through no fault of their own, are unable to
leave the Netherlands. The Committee considers these people to be de facto stateless.
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