Lynch, Maureen; Blitz, Brad K. --- "Summary and Conclusions" [2011] ELECD 178; in Blitz, K. Brad; Lynch, Maureen (eds), "Statelessness and Citizenship" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2011)

Book Title: Statelessness and Citizenship

Editor(s): Blitz, K. Brad; Lynch, Maureen

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781849800679

Section: Chapter 11

Section Title: Summary and Conclusions

Author(s): Lynch, Maureen; Blitz, Brad K.

Number of pages: 15

Extract:

11. Summary and conclusions
Maureen Lynch and Brad K. Blitz




Source: © UNHCR/Greg Constantine 2010.


Figure 11.1 In the Cote d'Ivoire, the definition of who is `Ivorian' and
who isn't has influenced issues relating to documentation,
nationality, land ownership and voting rights. Many people
born of foreign parents or in the north of the country face
difficulty claiming their right to nationality.



RECOGNIZING AND RESOLVING THE GLOBAL
PROBLEM OF STATELESSNESS

More than 60 years after the international community embedded the right
to nationality in the human rights architecture that we rely on today,
approximately 12 million people around the world remain stateless.

194
 Summary and conclusions 195

These are people who struggle to exist, much less enjoy protection of their
human dignity. Statelessness also cuts across a host of other issues that
operate not just at the level of the state but at the sub-national and global
levels. While the global problem of statelessness is commonly associated
with political and territorial upheaval, displacement, migration, popula-
tion growth, trafficking and climate change, it is sustained by the absence
of the rule of law and by weak and undemocratic systems of governance.
Statelessness is further institutionalized in systemic discrimination in the
form of gender inequality and racist and ethnocentric policies.
The premise for this study is that, in spite of the challenges noted above
and the complex issues that give rise to statelessness, a small number of
states have made measurable progress in helping individuals acquire or
regain ...