First Phase - 2010

Special half-day workshop on Statelessness in South Asia held on 11 December 2010 

Statelessness is the quality of being, in some way, without a state. In fact it means without a nationality, or at least without the protection that nationality should offer. Nationality is the legal bond between a state and an individual. It is a bond of membership that is acquired or lost according to rules set by the state. Once held, nationality – membership – brings with it both rights and responsibilities for the state and for the individual. As the world has been divided into state systems not to be a member of any one of them is a serious concern. While membership of a state is the norm statelessness continues to be widespread and has not escaped the interest of the international community. Within the realm of public international law, rules have evolved in response to the problem of statelessness. A definition has also emerged describing a stateless person as a person who is not considered as a national by any state under the operation of its law (generally equated with the term de jure statelessness). This definition can be found explicitly in Article 1 of the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, one of the two major international instruments to deal specifically with the issue of statelessness. Keeping these facts under consideration this workshop intended to focus on the issues related to statelessness in South Asia. This special workshop was the part of our Eighth Annual Winter Course on Forced Migration.