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Concept
Statelessness
Summary
In international law, a stateless person is someone who is "not considered as a national by any state under the operation of its law". Some stateless people are also refugees. However, not all refugees are stateless, and many people who are stateless have never crossed an international border. On November 12, 2018, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees stated there are about 12 million stateless people in the world.
The status of a person who might be stateless ultimately depends on the viewpoint of the state with respect to the individual or a group of people. In some cases, the state makes its view clear and explicit; in others, its viewpoint is harder to discern. In those cases, one may need to rely on prima facie evidence of the view of the state, which in turn may give rise to a presumption of statelessness.
Conflicting nationality laws are one of the causes of statelessness. Nationality is usually acquired through one of two modes, although many nations recognize both modes today:
Jus soli ("right of the soil") denotes a regime by which nationality is acquired through birth on the territory of the state. This is common in the Americas.
Jus sanguinis ("right of blood") is a regime by which nationality is acquired through descent, usually from a parent who is a national. Almost all states in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Oceania grant citizenship at birth based upon the principle of jus sanguinis.
A person who does not have either parent eligible to pass citizenship by jus sanguinis can be stateless at birth if born in a state which does not recognize jus soli. For instance, a child born outside Canada to two Canadian parents who were also born outside Canada would not be a Canadian citizen, since jus sanguinis is only recognized for the first generation in Canada. If the child were born in India and neither parent had Indian citizenship, then the child might be stateless since India confers citizenship only to children born to at least one Indian parent, but would more likely inherit citizenship from a parent.
Official source
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