Subcommittee on Human Rights HEARING on Addressing forced exile, removal of nationality and statelessness worldwide
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DROI European Parliament
Follow its sittingsSpeaker 4
That is the result of our study. There are stories of torture, arbitrary detention, harassment, serious violations of human rights, crimes against amenity. I am one of the 83,000 who have left Nicaragua at the Ortega Murillo government shut down at the human rights center, Senid. I had to leave. International and human rights organizations were being expelled from the country.
Speaker 10
Civic space was being shut down, and over 5,600 organizations were shut down. I was very sad to have to leave and go to Costa Rica. I had to leave behind my family, but I wanted to continue raising my voice for my country. I am cofounder of the Nicaragua Never Again Organization. We violate the regime's cry, we document the violations of human rights committed by the regime.
Mounir Satouri
A couple of my colleagues left their mothers behind in Nicaragua. They were unable to go back and see them before they died. They weren't even able to attend their funerals. Exile is a challenge to all those suffering from it. You have to live in a new culture, get used to a new culture, and start from square one in countries where there may be discrimination, and it may be difficult to get access to housing and jobs and medical care and studies.
Speaker 4
It is an exhausting process. Apart from exile, the dictatorship has removed nationality from many Nicaraguans. Their names were canceled from the public registers. Their children's names were cancelled. We know that 33% of those whose nationality has been stripped are adults. They have lost their pensions.
Mounir Satouri
They are more fragile now. They are forced into exile far away from their families. And 292 Nicaraguans have been denied reentry to the country, so they have been banished and made into de facto stateless persons. There's a whole series of human rights violations. Removal of nationality and exile is evidence of the cruelty of the regime, which sets out to silence critical voices and continue persecution outside the country. The GREN expert group on human rights in Nicaragua has evidenced human rights violations outside the country to over 200 cases of threats and extrajudicial executions in Honduras and elsewhere.
Speaker 4
And people remain in exile to continue raising their voices. We think it's vital to have strategies which allow those who have been exiled and stripped of their nationality to regain their identity. And the EU, I think, can act in bringing cases to court in order to reduce cases of statelessness, to bring pressure to bear with regard to those exiled and de facto stateless people, and bring cases to the International Criminal Court on the basis of the extraterritorial crimes against humanity committed against Nicaraguan. Thank you very much for your attention.
Thank.
Speaker 7
thank you very much. I'll give the floor now to Miss Karim. I hope her connection will be all right. Good.
Lucky Karim
Morning, Mister Sherman, members of the Parliament. I'm very grateful to the European Parliament Subcommittee on Human Rights. It is an honor for me to be here today representing my community and sharing my personal and professional experience. I am very grateful to the commune.
Mounir Satouri
Well, I did say earlier that there might be a few connection problems. What I suggest is that we move forward now, and I suggest I give the floor to Ms. Bronwyn Manby for seven minutes. And then if Ms. Karim comes back online, we'll be able to hear from her.
Bronwyn Manby
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you for this opportunity to address the committee. I am speaking today on the topic of the audience, forced exile, removal of nationality, and statelessness worldwide, which is three closely interlinked topics. Next slide, please. So I will start off with, what is statelessness?
My expertise is the right to a nationality and statelessness, but the concept of statelessness can be difficult to understand. There is a definition in the 1954 convention relating to the status of stateless persons. A person who is not considered a national by any state under the operation of its law. This simple definition has a 20-page discussion in the handbook on protection of stateless persons, which is a document of UNHCR, in which a key element is that this definition is a mixed question of fact and law, that you must both look at what are the questions of conflicts of law, but also how the state in practice applies its law to determine if a person is stateless. We don't know how many stateless people there are.
Very approximate statistics from about 90 countries indicate we have at least four and a half or so million people globally, but the number is likely very many millions more than that. And one point to say is although the topic of this subject is forced exile, most stateless people are living in what you might describe as their own country, the place where they have the strongest connections and which is their home, and they are being denied nationality where they live. A quick note to say that in English, in international law, nationality and statelessness are synonyms. There is a very long discussion about usage in other languages and other contexts, but we can use them as synonyms in international law. Next slide, please.
So what causes statelessness? On the one hand, we have nationality laws that lack even the minimum protections against statelessness as established in international law. In general, purely descent-based systems with no rights at all based on birth in the territory create statelessness. We have weak civil registration systems, so people cannot document the fact that they need to establish their nationality. Burdensome and often discriminatory, and administrative requirements where if your last name does not match the expected type of last name, you will be asked for additional documents, and a lack of due process and appeal in relation to acquiring identity documents.
And over all of this, the concept of arbitrary deprivation and denial of nationality, which is a method of silencing and excluding critics and populations who are not desired, as we have just heard, and most stateless people are indeed members of minorities. Statelessness in general is a cause and consequence of discrimination, poverty, exclusion, insecurity, and forced migration as well. Often, lack of identity documents where people live may force them to look for better opportunities elsewhere, but equally, being forced into exile may remove your ability to acquire identity documents and secure legal documentation of legal personality. Statelessness in particular can exclude people from access to public services, health, education, and so forth. Next slide, please.
Deprivation of nationality and banishment, historical terms, are tools of exclusion with a very long history. And not all deprivation involves invocation of the formal deprivation provisions that are in the nationality code. Often, it is simply just refusal to renew an identity document, cancellation of an identity document, refusal to somebody who is qualified for nationality under the law, but there are constant go and bring your grandparents' birth certificate. Do this. Refusal to recognize the nationality of a person who is causing trouble in some way or simply, you know, exercising their rights to free speech.
We have many examples, unfortunately, which I won't go into detail, but I'm happy to ask questions about. Obviously, historically, going back, in particular to the forced deprivation of nationality from Jewish people living in Germany. But in the more modern era, Ethiopia, Eritrea were in the context of state succession when the two countries split, a very common context for the creation of stateless populations. Around 75,000 people from each side were deprived of the nationality of the place where they lived and forced to move, many of them remain stateless because not recognized by the other country. Myanmar, which we will hear about, hopefully, but we have around 1,000,000 Rohingya living in exile in Bangladesh.
Dominican Republic, couple of 100,000 people deprived. A couple of the Gulf states, Bahrain and Kuwait, have deprived hundreds or thousands of people of a nationality. Nicaragua, which we have heard about. And let us not forget also the European Union member states and the deprivation of nationality from the foreign terrorist fighters, those European Union citizens who have traveled especially to the Middle East to fight, but especially their children born outside of the territory and their situation. And we also have, in a broader context, the claim to fraudulent acquisition or non-entitlement for groups who in fact should be entitled.
For example, in Assam in India, the Eastern Congo, Côte d'Ivoire. Next slide, please. We have a strong framework on nationality in international law starting from the Universal Declaration. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality. The human rights treaties provide for children to acquire nationality, and we have the two conventions already mentioned on the status of stateless persons establishing a protection regime, and on the reduction of statelessness providing for minimum protections against statelessness in nationality codes.
And UNHCR has provided extensive guidance on the interpretation of these provisions. We have regional treaties. There are two European treaties on nationality and on the avoidance of statelessness in the context of state succession. And the Inter-American and African systems have also developed quite an extensive jurisprudence and have treaty provisions providing for the right to a nationality. Most recently, the African Union adopted a protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights on the specific aspects of the right to a nationality and the eradication of statelessness in Africa in 2024.
And my last slide, please. This is absolutely a question of relevance for the European Union. Referring also to the European consensus on development, and I know this is a human rights committee, but the human rights concerns cross to the development work of the European Union, which in general adopts a rights based approach, but statelessness, while would be encompassed within that rights based approach in terms of addressing some of the similar issues, is not integrated in that work, and there are opportunities to do so. In particular, I think there are opportunities to think about how European Union support for civil registration regimes does not exclude, especially new identification, the new digital identity schemes, and the importance of a consistent approach to the international law framework across different countries, including the European Union respecting these principles itself. Thank you very much.
Mounir Satouri
Thank you very much. I'm sure colleagues will be coming in to continue the debate. I'll give the floor to Mr. Shikera. Mister De Chiquera, over to you.
Amal de Chickera
Thank you very much for inviting me to speak to the subcommittee. I'm a human rights lawyer and activist. I currently am based out of the UK, and I codirect the Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion. And I'm also associated with various other global and regional initiatives, including the global movement against statelessness. I would like to pick up the conversation from where Bronwyn left it, and I would like to talk first about a few other contexts in which citizenship stripping, forced exile, and statelessness come into play, and then share a few reflections with the subcommittee in terms of how I feel this manifests and why it has been allowed to manifest in this way before posing to the subcommittee some considerations, which I think are quite specific to the EU context and the EU's foreign policy, and ending with some recommendations.
Now in terms of other context, Bronwyn's already talked about the way citizenship stripping has been used in the context of national security, how it's being used to target large minority communities in countries such as the Rohingya, but also how it's been used to target communities who are themselves of migrant heritage. And I would like to draw the subcommittee's attention here to the principles on deprivation of nationality as a national security measure, which are a document which synthesizes international human rights law and which sets out, after looking at the various obligations that states have in relation to the right to nationality, that whilst it is permissible under international law to deprive nationality in very limited and specific context, when you look at the bigger picture of the other obligations that states have, obligations to avoid statelessness, to not discriminate, to not act in an arbitrary way, and I can go on, what this ultimately means is that in good faith, a state will not be able to deprive someone of their citizenship. And we've seen this play out in Nicaragua, in Kuwait, in Bahrain, in the UK, and in many other contexts. I think another important situation to draw attention to is where large communities find that their citizenship is never secure.
It's always precarious. It's always scrutinized because the state will keep bringing in new measures to subject them to the microscope. And we've seen this happening in India, in Assam, but also more recently in West Bengal when 9,000,000 people were disenfranchised, in the context of the recent elections. And we've also seen this happening in The USA with the constant focus under the Trump administration on birthright citizenship as well as the rights of migrant communities. And also to say that what this creates then is a phenomenon of displacement, which then becomes a global challenge.
Now the reflections that I would like to share in terms of how this relates to human rights law more generally is that states deprive citizens of their nationality because they can. And states deprive citizens of their nationality because they find it to be their benefit. And both of these are consequences of human rights failings: the failing to protect the right to nationality and give it the place it deserves under the human rights lexicon, and the failure to recognize that all other rights flow from a shared humanity and not from our legal status. Because if states had to provide everyone with their human rights regardless of their legal status, the cynical advantage of depriving someone of their nationality so they can be forced into exile, they can be denied access to education, etc., would be taken away. Secondly, it's to say that the vulnerability, the insecurity that follows a person once they've been stripped of their legal status, stays with them in a migrant context.
And what this means is that the responsibility to protect is shared across states and the violation of rights continues once the status has been stripped. And so if we have migrants and exiled citizens in other countries, including in EU states, who continue to live with insecurity, then there is a human rights responsibility on those states as well. And thirdly, to say that the incessant attack on the international legal order that we have seen over the last few years, particularly in the context of the genocide of the Palestinian people and other significant violations of the most basic concepts of international law means that it's more difficult for states to be held accountable for their unlawful behavior, and it's more difficult for stateless people to find justice. And here too, there is a shared and collective responsibility. Now very quickly, I would post to the subcommittee that there are three particular considerations that I think are relevant in the EU context.
The first is that domestic policy cannot be disassociated from foreign policy. And I know that I appreciate that this subcommittee's focus is on foreign policy. But if you look at the European aside of a migration pact, if you look at citizenship's stripping practices within the EU itself, if you look at the treatment of migrants within the EU, these are all factors which weaken the EU's foreign policy position and which are even to relate with the EU's foreign policy position as well. Secondly, foreign policy in one area cannot be disassociated from foreign policy in another area. And as long as the EU as a block continues to fail to hold states accountable for their crimes, including Israel, as long as the EU as a block continues to take a soft stance on certain issues, it makes its position and its ability to take a stronger stance on other issues more difficult.
And thirdly, and related to this, as any entity that is committed to human rights law needs to be committed universally to human rights law, which means you cannot pick and choose which issues to highlight and which groups to protect based on who the perpetrator is. Now my recommendations, and I'll be very quick because I'm running out of time, but I'm very happy to come back to this. I have 5 recommendations for your consideration. One is the EU is well placed to engage more effectively with the international courts, in particular, the International Court of Justice. And here, there are opportunities to join ongoing cases in relation to Myanmar and Israel, which engage the genocide convention.
But there's also an opportunity to initiate a case on Nicaragua in relation to the 1961 convention on the reduction of statelessness. Secondly, I urge the committee to push the EU to take a stronger and a more consistent position with targeted sanctions towards individual perpetrators of crimes against people in the context of forced exile and statelessness. And here too, Nicaragua, Myanmar, and Israel are the obvious kind of context, but there are others as well. Thirdly, in the context of EU domestic policy, I would push the committee to engage with other committees within the parliament and other instruments within the union to push for stronger and more consistent application of international and regional norms to protect the rights of stateless people within the EU, and thereby model the type of practice that the EU is also promoting outside of the EU. The final two recommendations, and I'm conscious of my time.
First is that I urge the EU to use its diplomatic channels more consistently to push this issue, particularly in the context of the UN General Assembly and the UN Human Rights Council, the Global Refugee Forum, where there are opportunities to keep the issue of statelessness and the right to nationality on the agenda, and push for stronger action. And finally, in the context of resourcing, this cuts two ways. Firstly, to resource more action to challenge unlawful practices when it comes to statelessness. But secondly, to be mindful of how EU resources play a role in actually manufacturing statelessness, and this can come to play in the context of the rollout of digital ID and the way technology is now being used in many ways, but also in the way EU resources are supporting different context in which stateless people are being targeted and deprived of their rights. I thank you for your time, and I'll be very happy to engage on these or any other points, further in the Q and A.
Speaker 7
Yes. We're going to try Miss Karim again to see if the quality of the collection has improved, and otherwise, we'll open the floor. Okay. Go ahead, madam Karim. I hope you're properly connected.
Lucky Karim
Members of the parliament, thank you for having me back. It was a connection problem. I hope you are fine now. My name is Lucky Karim. I'm a member of the Rohingya community from Burma, Myanmar originally.
My community is pretty well known for being displaced more than nine times, not just once in 2017. When I was just 14 years old from the northern part of Rakhine State, Mungdaw, I was forced to flee my home along with more than a million people. That now brings to over 1,300,000 people languishing in Kaxos or refugee camps in Bangladesh. And I appreciate the EU for being one of the largest donors for the last couple of years. My community from Burma is being displaced not just one time, not just two times, not just three times, but multiple times.
And at the same time, we also have members of the Rohingya community inside Miramar and Rakhine state that are also internally displaced within our own country, within this state. We also have members of the Rohingya community spread all over the world, unfortunately. We have people taking the risks on a tiny bus, to expecting a better life, traveling to neighboring countries such as Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia. We have people that are in exile in the border as well, not being allowed to return back to their homes, not being allowed to cross the border into neighboring countries either. Our community members, unfortunately, we have more people outside Myanmar in exile, internally displaced in refugee camps, and less inside our own country.
The prob the genocide is a process in Myanmar. It did not start overnight. It did not start over a month ago. It continues to this day on our people everywhere. For refugees living in Cox's Bazar refugee camps, the humanitarian crisis is dire.
It continues to worse, it continues for people also living inside Myanmar and Wakanda state for the remaining members of the Rohingya community as well. There is no access to humanitarian aid for people exiled inside the country, internally displaced people. There's no protection, and there's also very limited resources for people internally displaced inside a reconnaissance state to get access to transportation, communication with their families back home, or in refugee camps in Bangladesh. While the people in Cox's Busan refugee camp continue to wait in their shelters for a sustainable solution, in the hope that they will be able to return to their homes. They need they're continuing needing humanitarian aid, including WFP Russian food monthly that the WFP provide to them and other malnutrition or other humanitarian aid for refugees to survive while they're still in the camps.
We continue to share. The people continue to share the little they have while they are in exile, while they are in the camps, but this will not be possible for the more long term solution, for the more long term sustainable solution, as there's no deadline for refugees for when these people will be able to return back to their homes. We will need more support from the EU to continue providing humanitarian aid for people while they're in the camps in bondage. EU could also do more to help politically for our Hindu to sanction the military regime in Myanmar and find a solution for sustainable repatriation back to our home. EU could also do more to engage in our existing case going on in the National Court of Justice in The Hague in the Netherlands, which we had a public full hearing in January. You could also do more to help us engaging with the Security Council in New York, the United Nations, Human Rights Council in Geneva, and more with the host community in Bangladesh, and more with other Myanmar authorities inside Burma and civil society community members inside Burma to continue helping us, making sure that the people in exile and people displaced at the border or people in refugee camps in Bangladesh are not forgotten.
And it's also very obvious for Rohingya to often be forgotten by member states, by donor countries because of the geopolitics, and for being displaced for such a long time, for a few decades almost. And I, on behalf of the community, on behalf of organizations, on behalf of agencies and civil society members, greatly appreciate all the support being provided so far. It is just the reality is people continue to suffer and genocide continues to happen against us even to this day. At the same time, Myanmar military has never accepted Rohingya or called Rohingya by their own name, and will never accept until there is a legal process, and then until they have been held accountable. It is important while the crisis continues, while the case continues at the court, it is important to ensure people on the ground, people in the camps and people in exile, in IDPs, receiving humanitarian aid and are being protected from any kinds of violence, and not continue dying from hunger or violence from Myanmar authorities or the military regime while they're still in Burma.
I mean, I'm happy to come back to some of these key points, and I'm also very aware of my five minutes. I'm happy to continue the conversation on some of this recommendation in the Q and A section. Thank you so much.
Speaker 16
Yes. I'm sure there will be discussion because it's actually the right moment now to have that discussion. We'll start with Isabelle from PP from the EPP. First of all, I'd like to thank our experts as well as the testimonies that we've heard, because, obviously, they stem from very difficult situations. The images of Cox Bazar we saw when we went on a mission to Bangladesh with this committee, those images are still very fresh in my mind.
Speaker 15
And I connect this topic to those images of today's topic. Because if you don't have a nationality or a state, I know that life isn't as one might expect, that you're deprived of a number of rights. You can't travel as others might. You're deprived of a number of freedoms. And even having this topic on the agenda is important, so that we can raise awareness.
Thank you. Now I have a question for Mr. Amal Dasikera. He brought up that it would be important for us to work with other groups, other committees, and on other levels so that we can have a more coherent application of our regulations. Does he have examples he could put forward? And I wanted to ask everyone else if they have messages of specific examples or specific messages they want us to tackle.
Speaker 14
But thank you very much for all of your work and for all the testimonies we've heard. Mister Taquino for the S and D group.
Thank.
You, chair.
Speaker 17
And I would like to express my thanks to all the rapporteurs for the information they've given us. And I would like to support Isabel Lima's question about what can be done, and I'd like to add a few things. I was very struck by all the things that were said about the Rohingya and Nicaragua, which I know well. And I'm wondering about why Noah mentioned the twenty-eighth people in the union, the Roma. And I am very much involved with the countries in Eastern Europe and the Western Balkans.
I'm part of the delegation from Albania. Now the former Yugoslavia dissolved following the civil war. And many came to Italy from that area, and they live in a situation of limbo. They are stateless. They are exiled.
They really live on the margins in every sense. And some useful processes have developed. Amalde Shikera talked about how the subcommittee for human rights could work with other committees, such as the Libe Committee, the Civil Liberties Committee. So I'm wondering about proposals that we can put forward to really have some impact. This is an issue which we look at on a global level, but it really affects us in Europe directly.
Thank you.
Speaker 18
Thank you, dear colleague, mister Vale, for the PFE. Thank you, chair. Thank you, colleagues. Thank you to the speakers. I want to remind everyone that our groups have always supported the parliamentary resolutions aiming to support the Nicaraguan people who are struggling.
My colleague asks what can be done. Well, first of all, the parliament's resolutions should be applied properly when they are adopted by the parties in the government. I regret that the far left, such as our colleagues from the LFI, say that Cuba and Nicaragua support human rights. I think we can all agree in this committee that the terrorist regime in Nicaragua is completely against human rights. And now for miss Mandy, we have a different opinion.
France, which I represent, is very much affected by Islamist terrorism. The attack killed 131 people. We saw a debate which was started by a socialist president on statelessness. The patriots in this parliament say that when people get a fresh nationality, it's not a it should be a point of pride, and they need to respect the laws of the country where they move. And when we have people who take up arms against their country and who betray the fundamental interests of their nation and then respect the most important laws, which are about respecting the rights of the country, which gave you the privilege of national ID, well, then you know, it needs to be coherent with the way in which we want to apply our importance of human rights.
Mounir Satouri
I'm sad that people had to die in these attacks, and this was facilitated by, for example, the socialist president. People need to respect the laws in their countries, and they definitely can't take up arms against the country which receives them. Well, I, Mister Vale, I thought that we had to resolve the issue of inter MEP conversations. There's no one here from the left. Well, I just wanted to remind you of our positions.
I didn't notice that they were not here. Okay. Well, that's why I was bringing it up for that reason. Now Mister Bernard Guitar for the Renew Group.
There.
Speaker 21
Was a passport in the past representing statelessness. Does this still exist? And second question, has there never been a plan from the UN, for example, to create stateless passports more in a wider sense? Well, that was short, but very concise. Catalina Vera.
Speaker 22
Just wanted to start by thanking all of our panelists because there have been many interesting contributions today. And, I mean, it goes without saying that with shrinking civic space all around the world, we see more and more people in exile. And also people who, whether they're stateless or not, if they come to other countries in exile, they face severe threats due to transnational repression. So also here in the EU, we need to continue to protect those that we host here and do more from them. And I was very glad to hear the examples brought forward by Nicaragua and particularly by the Rohingya community, because as Isabelle said, some of us here from this committee had had the opportunity to go to Bangladesh recently to Cox's Bazaar.
Speaker 24
And we know for a fact that many of the people who are there now, they already lost their citizenship back when they were still living inside Myanmar. They got their rights taken away, and that is a process that only escalated towards more violence and more discrimination and how many of them are born stateless, which is an absolute tragedy that is definitely worth highlighting here. And therefore, I would hope to see that you create safe entry pathways for people who flee violence and war and repression, have more long standing residence permits, guarantee the right to work and advocate while in exile, and to see improvement of coordination between member states in all of these measures. To our panelists, quick two questions. I think the first, many of you or some of you went into what the EU could do more.
Speaker 23
I'm also curious to see what you assess the current situation to be. Are there already things in place that support you that you see we do that are helpful? And secondly, specifically to mister Amalda Shikera, I know that the global state statelessness fund, which you represent, has done some research on the link between statelessness and climate change, and I was wondering if you could elaborate a little bit on that nexus. Thank you very much.
Mounir Satouri
Does Mister Lupaca want to take the floor? I don't see anyone else asking for the floor. So I will, I will give the floor back to the panel so that they can answer their questions. And as earlier, we will start with Ms. Flores en ligne.
Speaker 4
Gracias. Thank you very much. Thank you for your comments and for all the solidarity shown to the victims from Nicaragua. We know that the European Parliament has passed strong resolutions condemning the stripping of nationality and offering support to the victims who have been stripped of their nationality. And we're talking about quite a high proportion of victims.
I know 17 who have got Spanish nationality now, but a lot of others haven't got nationality anywhere, and have difficulty getting documents and recovering access to the rights which all persons should enjoy. As far as I and my group are concerned, it's important to keep up the international pressure on the Nicaraguan regime and to continue cooperating with organizations offering support, national organizations, and international organizations which are documenting the situation of statelessness and removal of nationality in our country. And cases should be brought, specific cases should be brought before the International Court of Justice because Nicaragua still uses this forum. They left the Human Rights Council, and they've left many international bodies, the OAS, for example. But they have disregarded the international legal instruments in everything they're doing.
But they still recognize achievements before the International Court of Justice, that is still recognized. So I think the EU could make a contribution by bringing and supporting cases to make sure that legal and practical progress can be made, so that Nicaraguans can recover their nationality. So cases should be brought to the International Criminal Court as well in cases of torture, which many people have been victims of, including those who've lost their nationality. There were 222 persons who were expelled and another 47 who were arbitrarily stripped of nationality and forced to leave. So to recover the victims' rights, it's important to engage in concrete actions and put across very specific messages.
Thank you.
Okay. Okay.
Mounir Satouri
Thank you. Miss Karim, you have the floor. I'm being told that we have some time, so you can go over by a few minutes if you want. Go ahead.
Lucky Karim
Thank you so much. I wanted to go back to the last question for all the panelists on what EU could do more to help people or could expand the existing support for refugees or people in exile. As I mentioned, for those who are still in exile, for those who are still in refugee camps or internally displaced, AU could do more to help them by providing humanitarian aid, supporting the programs that are much needed on the ground, supporting by engaging with host government, to make sure while people are still in exile, while people are still in refugee camps are protected and have access to humanitarian aid. EU could also do more to make sure by engaging with the court that have existing cases, court like ICJ, you know, a National Court of Justice, for example, at which we just recently had a public full hearing in January earlier this year, Myanmar versus Gambia. You could do more by collaborating and engaging with other member states to make sure more member states and countries are supporting and funding the programs and making sure people do not continue to die from hunger and violence.
There's more need for our Hungarian refugees to address the situation, to make sure people have access to humanitarian aid. People are protected. People are being welcomed and recognized. Those who are fleeing the violence, those who are fleeing the genocide from Myanmar to neighboring countries, are being welcomed and accepted as refugees. It is also very important that EU continues to engage with ASEAN countries to make sure there is regional pressure on Myanmar military and other authorities that are in power in charge as well.
It is also very important that refugees who are fleeing the violence and fleeing genocide, crossing borders, to seek refuge in neighboring countries continue to accept, to receive support from those whose countries, from those neighboring countries. And you could do more by engaging with us in countries that are receiving refugees almost every day by boards, some of whom by walking through the mountainous and borders or those who are still who are already in their countries and have been not welcomed or were accepted as refugees. But at the same time, it is also important to remember and to keep in mind that being in exile, being in a refugee camp is a temporary solution, which people do not expect and not something people would wanna continue to live in a situation like this. Everyone is hoping for a return to their homes and a sustainable solution, which definitely means repatriation with their full rights, justice, and dignity, to have a voluntary, safe, and dignified return, which, again, as I said, AA could do more by sanctioning the Myanmar military regime and continuing engaging and supporting the existing cases that are in court already.
Thank you.
Bronwyn Manby
Questions. I will respond to a few of them. First, to senior Parcunio. The situation of the Roma, we were instructed that this is a foreign affairs committee, but you are absolutely right that the Roma situation is an important one. And it emphasizes the importance for the European Union to be consistent in applying the rules internationally to itself as much as it argues that other countries should apply.
And I think that the regularization and establishment of the citizenship of the Roma, creating pathways for them to have secure status in the countries where they live within the European Union, is absolutely critical. I think that relates also to the question about the Nansen passport, and does the UN have a similar system of issuing documents to stateless people? The Nansen passport was created in response to displacement during and after the First World War, and it no longer exists. The system was replaced in essence by the 1951 UN refugee convention, which indeed provides for a system of issuing identity documents to refugees. In all European countries, and generally most countries, those identity documents would be issued by the country where the person is a refugee.
But in some countries, those documents are issued by UNHCR, in collaboration with the government concerned, depending on the administrative capacity of those countries. So the system for issuing identity documents to refugees exists. And in addition, the 1954 convention relating to the status of stateless persons provides for a system of protection, including the issue of identity documents and travel documents for stateless persons. However, although I think there are around 80 or 90 states parties to the 1954 convention, there are only, I think, 15 countries that have adopted a system to issue identity documents and grant protection status to stateless people. So, I mean, some of those countries are European countries.
There are most of them, in fact, are European countries. But it, for example, in the case of the Roma, the establishment that a person is stateless, the grant of protection as a stateless person with a certain route to acquire nationality, the children born in the territory to be able to acquire nationality is a critical protection pathway, which does exist. However, I want to emphasize that protection pathway is generally suitable for people who are, as it were, not in their own country. For people who are living in a country, especially over multiple generations, where they are not recognized as nationals even though they almost certainly should be recognized as nationals under the law, the appropriate protection status is nationality rather than stateless person status. But in some context, as a transitional status, that is important.
The last point, second to last point, I will address is the one on deprivation of nationality. Indeed, international law, the 1961 convention provides for deprivation of nationality in a national security context, subject to very strict due process controls. So there are some countries, including the UK, which I know is sadly of no longer relevance here, but people can be deprived of nationality by executive decision, not by the courts, and without definitive conviction of a crime. France is in a better situation there and that it provides for people to be convicted of a crime first. But there are certainly the question of arbitrary deprivation and, you know, do people have the right to have their case in court to explain what is going on? And the children of those people born in another country have committed no crime.
And so the question of how does one think about that is important in human rights terms. One final point to make, and just I think touching on my final slide about the intersection between this committee and the work of the European Union on development. As we all observe, there is a very rapid expansion of requirements to prove your identity every time you turn around, including through biometric identification. And the introduction of new identity systems is a notorious place for the creation of new stateless populations, because it provides an opportunity to exclude the people you don't really think should be in the country. And we see this happening in a number of places.
I mean, in India, for example, the Assam people are being denied access to the identity documents that they need on the basis they are non-citizens even though the identity registry system is supposed to not record citizenship. So there's a real need for care and concern in connection with the human rights implications of support for new identity systems. Thank you. And I'll hand over to Amal to address the other outstanding points.
Mounir Satouri
You're quite right. Mister Amal Djikera, you now have the floor to respond to those questions.
Amal de Chickera
Thank you very much, and thank you to all of the MEPs for your interesting and important questions. I will try to go through them all and also to complement what my other expert colleagues have already shared in terms of their answers. In terms of examples of other groups that the committee can engage with, I mean, I am less familiar with the parliamentary infrastructure than you are. So maybe I'm not so helpful in terms of which specific groups. I can definitely think of the Libby committee and the civil liberties committee.
There may be others as well, but what I can share is maybe the types of issues which I think require this kind of, intersecting, multipolar kind of approach when it comes to the European, parliamentary infrastructure as well. And I think one definite area which requires a look both at foreign and domestic policy is around asylum and migration, and trying to ensure that there is greater parity, greater consistency between the standards that the European Union asserts in relation to the treatment of refugees, asylum seekers, stateless people outside of the EU, and the standards that are applied within the EU. And this also very importantly relates to the right to actually travel across borders to seek asylum, which is one area where I think the European Union is particularly open to significant critique for the way in which border control has denied people the very basic right to seek refuge and seek asylum. So I would say that this is one area. Another area is citizenship stripping.
The main perpetrators of citizenship stripping are outside of the EU, but also you definitely see citizenship stripping remaining within the books of EU member states and also being implemented within the EU. And this is another area where there needs to be greater consistency. And I would also say, and maybe connecting this to the second question on the Roma, the treatment of minorities. Now the Roma are a very strong example of what happens when the logic of community, the logic of humanity comes into clash with the logic of nation state and the logic of borders. Because with the Roma, you have a community that is spread across different states and is therefore viewed in every state as a minority, and viewed in every state as foreign because they belong to the other country.
And you have the same context playing out in many other countries around the world, both as a result of the way borders have been drawn, but also as a result of the way populations have been moved across borders through colonization and for other reasons. And this brings us back to the very core concept of human rights. And if our rights flow from our humanity, then they should not be contingent on which nationality we have or we are perceived to have, and they should certainly not be contingent on which group we are perceived to belong to. I think just to add to Bronwyn's point on the question of citizenship deprivation and also this whole debate about citizenship being a privilege or a right, I have seen this play out in many different contexts. I have seen it being put forward as a legitimate argument in states which range from democracies to very clearly authoritarian states.
And I think it's a very dangerous territory to get into, because if you believe that citizenship is a right, it is a right that's applicable to all. And the moment you start trying to carve out citizenship and present hierarchies within citizenship and make citizenship less secure for people depending on when or how they acquired it or what connection they have to other states, ultimately, you're undermining the value of citizenship as a whole, and citizenship is at the root of democracy. It's because citizens are the people who ultimately vote for their representatives, and representatives draw their legitimacy from their citizens. And so any attack on citizenship is an attack also on your legitimacy as representatives of the people, and I think that's a very dangerous place to move our democracies towards. I think people commit crimes regardless of their place of origin, regardless of their heritage.
And in fact, the significant academic and other research points that the level of crimes committed by people of migrant heritage across the world is much lower than the level of crimes committed by people who were born in the country. And I think the other point when it comes to the question of taking up arms is, again, that gets us into the territory of which battles fit within the logic of the state and which do not. And is it okay to take up arms if you're in Ukraine against Russia, but not okay to take up arms in the context of Syria? What happens if your citizens are joining the IDF to commit genocide in Gaza? So I think picking and choosing puts you in dangerous territory, and I think that an entity like the European Parliament needs to again look at this with a consistent approach looking both domestically and internationally.
Now on the question of passports, I just want to add one thing. Bronwyn made this point, but I want to reassert it that passports are important, but passports are a sticking plaster because we're talking here about the deprivation of a right. If we believe that everyone has a right to a nationality, the only legitimate resolution to the deprivation of that right is the reinstatement of that right. And the responsibility to reinstate that right lies with any state to which that person has a strong connection. Definitely the state that took that right away to begin with, but also the state in which the person has strong ties through residence, through marriage, and through other means as well.
And so, again, I think that the push has to be recognizing that, ultimately, if people are denied their right to a nationality, vulnerability will always be perpetuated. And finally, thank you for the question on climate change. I think statelessness relates to climate change in several different ways. The most obvious way is the this question and this very real concern with the disappearing islands. What happens if a territory ceases to exist?
Then does that mean the state doesn't exist, and does that then mean that the citizens of that state are stateless? And that is a question that's very important to, you know, countries in the Pacific, countries like Maldives. And I know that there has been a lot of progress in relation to addressing that question. It's a question for the present in relation to a future which we hopefully can still prevent if the world takes its attention back to climate change, which we seem to have forgotten about as we've been in this spiral of war and violence over the last few years. But I think there are other ways in which statelessness relates to climate change as well.
We saw this actually play out in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, whereby virtue of being stateless, by virtue of therefore being sidelined by states, pushed to the periphery, denied access to development, denied state protections, stateless people are more likely to be at the forefront of the effects of climate change. They're more likely to be in situations that are vulnerable to natural disasters where there hasn't been.
Amal de Chickera
Hasn't been there hasn't been the adequate infrastructure protection to prevent the disaster. And secondly, status people are excluded from state relief when the disaster happens. And we've seen this play out again in the context of the Rohingya with hurricane Nagis, but also in other context. So I think statelessness creates the precarity which allows for people to be more vulnerable, and which denies them protection once that vulnerability plays out. Thank you.
Mounir Satouri
Thank you very much. So before we come to an end here, we have the honor of having the vice of the UNCHR. You have the opportunity here to speak now, and by participating in this debate. Your service, the EAS, we're pleased to have you here in this debate. I'd like this topic to, well, whole of Europe to be very together on this debate.
And our debate as well has two aspects, because we're also sometimes wanting to ask a little bit more when it comes to the ability of the European Union to act. And so often, we are calling on either the commission or the EAS to participate in the debate and not just comment on it. So I'm pleased to have you here today to talk about this. So we want to have a team year that's more inclusive of everybody and all want all institutions to hear it. So we want to work together.
So you have the floor.
Thank.
You, chair.
Speaker 27
I would like to thank very much missus Flores and missus Karim for their testimonies. And also thank Professor Manby and Mr. Decikera for setting out excellently the international human rights framework that, of course, guides our EU external action on human rights. And I wish to thank you also for your food for thought in terms of the analysis of the challenges and your recommendations. Just maybe to pick up on a few points that the panelists have mentioned, we look at the right to a nationality as a fundamental human right.
And as was set out, it is confirmed in a number of human rights treaties, of course, in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in the specific convention on statelessness. We look at the plight of the stateless persons also from the human rights perspective, not only as the violation of their right to nationality, but also cause and effect of many types of discrimination that occur on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, language, gender. The stateless persons are often subject to many other human rights violations, such as access to basic rights, education, health care. We have also heard this in the testimonies. We try to address a panoply of causes and effects in various ways through our bilateral relations with the relevant countries and also through our multilateral engagement. We have in the EU action plan on human rights and democracy that runs until 2027, we have set out the EU human rights-based approach.
It focuses on persons in vulnerable situations, including stateless persons, in line with international human rights obligations under international law and standards. And it has also an ambition to strengthen the capacity of the state, civil society, and UN partners to implement this approach and support measures to improve integration, social cohesion, and access to quality services. As the EU consistently raises the issues of statelessness and the deprivation of nationality in our bilateral contacts, in human rights dialogues with those partners, countries with whom we have the dialogues, but also through other types of external action instruments. It includes the issues of due process, safeguards, and the broader social and economic impact on affected individuals. We also promote compliance with the international human rights standards, with particular attention to vulnerable groups such as children, including access to documentation, education, and protection measures.
And we do this both in bilateral contacts and also in multilateral fora. And speaking about multilateral human rights fora, there is also this horizontal way of addressing the right to nationality in the Human Rights Council that maybe is also worth recalling, where our EU member states are also in the core group. So we do not negotiate as the EU with one voice when we have member states in the core group. This is done through the voices of the member states who are negotiating. But just to say that this resolution has been adopted by consensus in 2023 for the last time, and most of our member states co-sponsored it actively.
And it calls upon states to adopt and implement nationality legislation in line with their obligation under international law to prevent and reduce statelessness. It also calls to accede to the statelessness conventions. And it calls on states also to develop and implement national plans of action to address statelessness. And there are also work strands directed at the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and also for human rights. And there have been workshops and exchanges of best practices among member states on those issues.
This concludes what I have to say for the time being. Thank you very much.
Thank.
Mounir Satouri
Thank you very much. I'd like to thank all of you for your contributions today. This is a topic that should no longer really exist in the twenty-first century. We've noted it's not just a problem outside of the EU, but also within the EU. And there's lots of links that we can make with, for example, the Libby committee.
And there are these rights that are part of Libbey and that we're concerned of as well, we can make this link, and we're going to certainly continue following the situation. We've heard different recommendations as well. So thank you very much. We will do our best. But very sincerely, this topic should no longer arise in the twenty-first century.
I can't understand that our gaze has moved away from this. It was ten years that the UN has been talking about this. There are millions of people across the planet. So we'll do our best to keep this on the agenda, and hope that our institutions think about this far more in the future. Thank you very much.
We will begin again in 5 minutes.
Speaker 5
Its mechanisms include the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, relevant treaty bodies, and special procedures. And the EIS will continue to engage with China in a principled manner, recalling that respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities, remains an essential element of our relationship.
Many thanks.
Speaker 12
Very. Well. Let's move on to the debate with the members. I think it's Raza who will start for the EPP. You have two minutes.
Rasa Juknevičienė
Thank you very much. I had some questions. Actually, my question about how much more we have here at the European Parliament can help was answered by Tensho Geyatso. But nevertheless, if you have some more ideas, it will be very helpful.
So here are some thoughts from my side. When I read about China's new ethnic unity and progress law, I did not see it as a distant policy matter. Saw my own country's history.
Under Soviet occupation, Lithuanian children were taught that Russian was the language of progress. And that our mother tongue was provincially unnecessary. Today, we hear translation into Lithuanian as well. As a proud European Union language.
When my mother was exiled to Siberia as a child, Lithuanian was called the language of the fascists. As a Lithuanian, I understand what this law means. We lived under a system that treated our language as an obstacle. To progress and our identity as a threat to unity.
The objective was not integration. It was repression. The same thing is now happening in the Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine. This is precisely what Beijing is doing now with the law.
Mandarin replaces Tibetan in schools. The law speaks of unity, but we know this vocabulary. We lived under this vocabulary. We should be clear eyed
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