Article 15 – Nationality

What does this right mean?

Everyone has the right to a nationality. When people have no nationality, they are stateless, and that means the protection they have and the protection of constitutional rights are much more limited.

I feel like I'm not a human. Because I have no dignity, I have no identification. I really don't know where to go and where to live, where I can live without stress. No one can say to me: ‘This is not your country, you have to go back.

What is the history of this right?

People can be or become stateless because of various reasons. It can happen because the country which nationality they had has ceased to exist and they received no new nationality. An example of a country where this happened is former Yugoslavia. Besides this, it can occur that children are not registered at birth or that they are not recognised as subjects of a country because of their family situations.  This also regularly happens in families who are on the run from war in their country of nationality. Some nationalities, such as the Syrian one, can only be passed on via the father. If a father does not recognise a child, the child has no nationality. People with no nationality are not under the jurisdiction of a state; they are stateless and therefore have fewer or no rights in a country. 

After the Second World War, many people became stateless because areas were rearranged and many people became displaced. Statelessness was therefore high on the political agenda in the drafting of the UDHR. Human rights from the UDHR were included in other legally binding treaties countries were required to obey after that, which results in citizens of these countries having certain rights and duties. This does not apply to people with no nationality. That makes this group additionally vulnerable. By giving people the right to a nationality, this group’s position, and their access to human rights, has improved.

Where and how is this right documented?

The two most important treaties are the UN Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons (1954) and the UN Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness (1961). The right to nationality is also documented in Article 4 Subsection a of the European Convention on Nationality (ECN). This treaty was drafted in 1997 and has the goal to prevent statelessness as much as possible. That also applies to the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness of 1961. Subsection 1 of Article 1 states that every state has to issue its nationality to people who were born on the territory of the country and who would be stateless otherwise.

In a number of treaties, the right to nationality has been documented for children. These are Article 24 Subsection 3 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and Article 7 Subsection 1 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC).

The ECHR does not have a specific right to nationality. Because of rulings by the European Court of Human Rights, Article 8 of the ECHR is relevant to nationality issues after all. For instance, the Court has ruled that nationality is a part of a person's social identity. The social identity is covered under the concept of private life from Article 8 of the ECHR. Because of this, actions such as the arbitrary refusal or repealing of nationality can be in conflict with this article.

How topical is this human right?

There are people who have no nationality. They are also called ‘stateless’, because they are no citizens of any state. Worldwide, approximately 10 million people are stateless. These are often migrants. It is often more difficult for these people to use all kinds of rights and human rights. This is because there is no state recognising these people and taking responsibility for them. Appealing to rights or human rights is therefore easier once they have been confirmed stateless. But many countries have no rules for confirming statelessness. The Netherlands is one of them.

In 2019, the Dutch municipalities of Amsterdam, Utrecht and The Hague stated they were going to help residents with no nationality to be recognised as ‘stateless’. This was because they believed the government was too slow in making rules for this group. In 2021, the municipality of Utrecht drafted a plan to help people to prove their nationalities or statelessness. This way, they want to ensure there are as few people as possible with the status ‘nationality unknown’. In November 2021, there were approximately 900 persons in Utrecht with the status ‘nationality unknown’. That means they could not prove whether they were stateless or had nationalities.