In recent years there has been a growing recognition among actors working in the fields of international protection and statelessness that COI on statelessness does not meet the needs of those who may seek to use it, including decision makers, lawyers, and stateless persons. A UNHCR audit on statelessness determination in the UK published in 2020 “notes the limited availability of country information on statelessness”, and at the same time highlights the important role that COI can play in determining statelessness claims.18 Findings from the audit led the UNHCR to recommend that “Relevant Home Office COI reports should include a section on ‘nationality and citizenship’”.19
Meanwhile, in its thematic review of U.S. Department of State Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, ARC Foundation drew attention to multiple deficiencies in the information presented on statelessness, including omissions or incomplete information on:
• The relevant laws and legal obligations these entail
• Law and policy in practice, including registering of births
• Profiling who the people most at risk of statelessness are
• The situation and treatment of stateless persons by the state and non-state actors
• The livelihood possibilities as well as access to basic services (e.g. documentation, health care, education, housing etc.) for those considered or classified as stateless.20
Asylos’ own unpublished analysis of UK Home Office Country Policy Information Notes (CPINs) found that coverage of the issue of statelessness is limited, with only a handful of CPINs dedicated solely to groups who are experiencing statelessness. COI on statelessness within other CPINs did not appear to be addressed in a consistent way, sometimes appearing under the sub-title “Citizenship and nationality”, and other times, appearing under sub-titles relating to documentation, freedom of movement, or the legal framework. If the issue of statelessness was mentioned in CPINs where the main topic was not addressing a stateless group, references to relevant COI on statelessness were invariably brief and not addressed in any substantial way. Meanwhile some CPINs omit any mention of statelessness, even where it may be relevant.
Much Country of Origin Information (COI) is tailored to refugee status determination procedures, and statelessness may not be identified as a possible issue in COI reports or only very briefly addressed. Experts by experience, lawyers, NGOs and academics, who took part in consultations with Asylos repeatedly pointed to a general lack of awareness among decision-makers and legal counsel about the contexts in which a person may be affected by statelessness. In addition, it was suggested that statelessness is often overlooked unless seen as a factor in causing serious harm or persecution, and is often not understood as a protection issue in its own right. In particular, participants identified the need for COI tailored to address not just nationality and citizenship frameworks, but also how they are applied, and how stateless people are treated by the authorities in countries of habitual residence in practice. Furthermore, it was observed that COI often lacks due attention to the diversity of terminology that may be used to describe people who are experiencing statelessness in the context of their country of habitual residence, which can lead to misunderstanding a person’s situation.
In developing this project, we conducted in-depth consultations with a range of stakeholders from those with lived experience of statelessness, to academics, lawyers and NGOs with expertise on statelessness. These consultations provided invaluable insight, helping us to further understand information gaps and inadequacies in the available COI on statelessness. Through the consultations, we sought to identify a research focus that could serve as a “case-study”, providing relevant and up to date COI on a particular group of stateless persons, while also creating the opportunity to distil broadly applicable best practice principles when conducting COI research on the issue of statelessness.
Among the stakeholders we consulted, stateless Palestinians were one of the most commonly identified groups of people for whom available COI is often inadequate. This is due to many factors, including the fact that existing COI often fails to capture the complexity of their statuses in the different countries in which they reside. Furthermore, there is very little information on the kinds of documentation available to stateless Palestinians, the entitlements that come with those documents, how easy it is to renew them, and whether they fall under the mandate of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). The theme of stateless Palestinians in Lebanon was selected as a focus for this research project because it represents a prime example of the diverse and complex causes that can lead to and perpetuate the problem of statelessness, from state succession and discrimination, to gender-discriminatory laws, and displacement due to conflict (in the case of Palestinian Refugees from Syria), and illustrates a range of considerations that COI researchers need to address when conducting research on statelessness.
In undertaking this research, we faced a number of limitations. In particular, among the sources consulted, including those published by NGOs and grassroots organisations, Palestinians in Lebanon were rarely described as “stateless”, sometimes making it challenging to verify whether information was of relevance to this report. Furthermore, Lebanon has undergone significant socio-economic changes in recent years, including political and financial crises that have affected the whole of society. Many sources we consulted focused attention on the political and economic turbulence that Lebanon has experienced, however, the situation of stateless Palestinians within this context lacked visibility.
It was difficult to determine the specific number of Palestinians who were stateless and living in Lebanon. This is primarily due to the fact that there has not been a proper census since 1932 and that many stateless individuals lack civil registration documents.21 Furthermore, despite the fact that the 1954 Convention defines a stateless person as someone who is “not considered as a national by any state under the operation of its law,” and despite the fact that the UNHCR publishes information on stateless people in their Global Trends Report22 and estimates that there are 4.3 million stateless people in the world overall, the number of stateless people is still a contentious issue. To make matters more confusing, those who are covered by UNRWA’s protection mandate are not included in UNHCR’s statistics.
COI for a number of questions was not found, but it is important to note that information gaps related to statelessness should not be regarded as confirmation that an issue does not exist. As noted in a COI research guide produced by ARC Foundation and Asylos, “plenty of things happen but do not make it into the world of information that is accessible to you”.23 As stateless people do not have legal status, they lack visibility in societies and are often excluded from formal registration and documentation processes and from access to institutions and public services. This means their lives are not counted and recorded in the same ways, or to the same extent, as citizens of a country. Furthermore, the marginalisation that stateless groups often experience within societies may mean that there is a lack of information about them, or certain aspects of their experience. Information on the following research questions was not found in the sources consulted during the research timeframe:
7.3 Are stateless Palestinian children disproportionately exposed to exploitation and other types of harm such as physical violence, sexual abuse etc? [While no information was found indicating whether Palestinian children experienced comparatively more exposure to harm than Lebanese children, information on Palestinian children’s exposure to harm more generally was found and included in the report].
14.8 Is there any additional penalty eg. deportation for stateless Palestinians who committed offences, in Lebanon or outside of Lebanon?
15.2 Do stateless Palestinians experience any forms of reprisals as a result of gathering/protesting/gathering a public profile for speaking on a political issue?
19 UNHCR, Stateless Determination in the UK: A UNHCR audit of the Home Office approach to decision-making in the Statelessness Determination Procedure, see p.. 10, 2020
20 ARC Foundation, Thematic Review, September 2021
21 The Collective for Research & Training on Development- Action, The Nationality Campaign, Ruwad alHoukouk Frontiers Rights et al, “Joint Submission to the Human Rights Council Universal Periodic Review”, July 2020, p. 4
22 UNHCR, Global Trends Report 2021, p..4