EMN Ireland and UNHCR Ireland jointly hosted a seminar on Statelessness Determination Procedures: Policy Options, Practical Experiences and Challenges, in Dublin on 5 May 2016.
The seminar commenced with a presentation from EMN Ireland on the current international and legal regulatory framework regarding statelessness and relevant Irish provisions in law.
UNHCR Ireland then outlined global trends regarding statelessness, including childhood statelessness. The UNHCR #IBelong campaign was highlighted, which aims to eradicate statelessness by 2024. UNHCR noted that momentum is building in various parts of the globe to address and reduce instances of statelessness
A presentation from the Immigrant Council of Ireland provided an insight into the experiences of stateless persons trying to regularise their status in Ireland. The Immigrant Council of Ireland discussed two cases that took over four years and seven years respectively to resolve.
Presenters from the UK Home Office provided an overview of the UK stateless determination procedure, introduced in 2013. A representative from the French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons, OFPRA, then provided an overview of the long-established French system for processing stateless claims, regulated in law in 2015.
The seminar was attended by representatives from civil society organisations, lawyers, academics, researchers and policy makers from a number of government departments and provided a timely opportunity to raise awareness of the issues faced by stateless persons globally and in Ireland, to learn more about established procedures in our neighbouring countries and to engage in an informed dialogue about the form that a procedure might take in Ireland.
The Council Conclusions on Statelessness, agreed last year during the Luxembourg Presidency, invite the European Commission to launch exchanges of good practices among Member States. The seminar in Dublin followed a conference on Tackling Statelessness: Exchange of Experiences and Good Practices, hosted by the Luxembourg EMN National Contact Point in April 2016.
For more information:
Download seminar presentations.
Download seminar programme.
Read European Network on Statelessness’ blog: Ireland’s ad-hoc approach is failing stateless persons: Dublin seminar highlights shortfalls and need for formal procedures.
See also Council of the European Union’s Conclusions on Statelessness (December 2015).
UNHCR website on statelessness
