Everything you need to know about statelessness

Preventing and solving statelessness in European law

Within the member states of the Council of Europe and the European Union, much remains to be done to address statelessness. While the laws created by…

Iceland’s accession to UN Statelessness Conventions reminds us how much more still needs to be done across Europe

On 26th January, Iceland acceded to the 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons and the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of…

Will Malta’s accession to the 1954 Convention help change a culture of ‘outright exclusion’ of stateless persons?

Malta finally acceded to the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons on 11 December 2019 after numerous calls from civil society…

“What do you mean by stateless?” – Arbitrary detention of stateless persons in Poland

In Poland statelessness doesn’t exist. Or so it would seem, for there are almost no official records of stateless persons. Those who are stateless…

Let’s talk about the army

How is the army relevant to statelessness? Conscription, a compulsory participation of citizens in their states’ military, still exists in over 60…

States as a root cause of statelessness

What is the root cause of statelessness? There are many answers to this question – conflict of nationality laws, gender discrimination, persecution…

Stateless persons in Iceland, rarer than the Northern Lights?

Iceland, with a population of 322,000 people, is about 1500 kilometers away from its closest neighbor on the European continent. It is a land of…

Hungarian Constitutional Court declares that lawful stay requirement in statelessness determination breaches international law

Until now, only lawfully staying persons could initiate a statelessness determination procedure in Hungary. After nearly eight years of struggle…

Statelessness in Italy: What’s next?

“It is time to give voice to the strangers among strangers”. With these words, journalist Gad Lerner introduced the first public meeting on…

Finland – a champion in the making in addressing statelessness?

The UNHCR study Mapping Statelessness in Finland was launched on 18 November, following similar studies already published in a number of European…

A welcome first step towards tackling statelessness in Poland

This year Poland celebrates 25 years of freedom, an anniversary marked by the country’s first democratic vote, the end of communist regime and…

Should nationality have a “minimum content”? – Italian Supreme Court passes landmark decision

With only a handful of countries operating a statelessness determination procedure, it is not very often that a national court passes a judgment of…