WHOSE JOB IS IT ANYWAY? UNHCR’S SECOND MANDATEThe primary responsibility for ending statelessness rests on governments. However, when states violate their obligations and people need protection, the task of helping the world’s stateless people falls to the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. The UNHCR was given a mandate over stateless persons when the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness came into force. In 1974, the UN General Assembly requested the UNHCR to undertake the functions foreseen under the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. In 1995, the UNHCR Executive Committee (ExCom) and the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) requested UNHCR to broaden its activities concerning statelessness to include all states. The office was also asked to gather and share information on the problem of statelessness globally, to train staff and government officials, and to regularly report back to the ExCom. Since few states had ratified the statelessness conventions, UNHCR was asked by the UNGA in 1996 to actively promote accession to the 1954 Convention and the 1961 Convention, as well as to provide relevant technical and advisory services pertaining to the preparation and implementation of nationality legislation to interested states. In 2004, ExCom invited UNHCR to pay particular attention to situations of protracted statelessness and explore with states measures that would ameliorate the situations and bring them to an end. The UNHCR has achieved some success. The agency launched a campaign to prevent and reduce statelessness among formerly deported peoples in Crimea, Ukraine (Armenians, Crimean Tatars, Germans, and Greeks who were deported en masse at the close of World War II). Another success has been the naturalization of Tajik refugees in Kyrgyzstan, as well as the participation in citizenship campaigns enabling 300,000 Estate Tamils to acquire citizenship of Sri Lanka. The UNHCR assisted the Czech Republic to overcome the large number of stateless persons created when it separated from Slovakia. The agency must be encouraged to build on these successes. An internal evaluation released in 2001 suggested that UNHCR had done little to exercise its mandate on statelessness. It is not clear how many of the recommendations from that report have been followed up, but at present, only two individuals are tasked with overseeing work in this area at UNHCR headquarters, though field officers have been trained to address these issues. There is no dedicated budget line. The staffing issue, combined with budget constraints, limits the number of field missions that can be undertaken. There is much to be done to get the UNHCR on track to fulfill its mandate for stateless people. Other humanitarian and rights organizations, including the office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, must also rally to the cause if any progress is to be made. |
Nationality: A Fundamental Human Right No Right to Reside: Conditions that Create Statelessness No Country to Call Home: The Scope of Statelessness Whose Job Is It Anyway? UNHCR’s Second Mandate “Citizen,
Third Class”: Findings from RI’s Statelessness Project Global Review of Statelessness --------------- |
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Lives on Hold: Whose Job is it?
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