"I was born in Estonia. But when we declared independence, I was not given citizenship"

UNHCR Launches 10-year campaign to end Statelessness

Roman Uustalu knows the first thing he will do when he receives his travel document.

“I will go back to see (my) dad”.

Roman was born in Ida-Virumma, a territory of the former Soviet Union that became modern-day Estonia in 1991. An ethnic Russian, he was eligible only for an “alien’s passport” from the government upon independence.  Estonian citizenship was not granted to everyone within its borders with the result that Roman’s citizenship and that of many people like him was marked as “undetermined”:

“I was born in Estonia and my parents were born in Estonia. But when we declared independence, I was not given citizenship.” 

Roman, like another 600,000 people in Europe, is stateless. Some have ended up on the other side of redrawn borders after the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. Others have fallen through the cracks of nationality legislation in the countries that once made up Yugoslavia. All of them cannot enjoy the full rights, privileges and duties that citizenship bestows on people.

Thankfully, there are signs of a shift in international attitudes. Just three years ago, there were barely 100 States parties to the two statelessness treaties - the 1954 UN Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons and the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. Today the number of accessions stands at 144. Amendments of nationality legislation in countries such as Latvia and the Russian Federation have helped avoid statelessness passing on from generation to generation. In recent years, Moldova, Georgia and the UK have joined the growing number of European countries that established mechanisms to identify and protect stateless people within their national frameworks. But more needs to be done.

In Ireland, for example, there is no formal recognition procedure for identifying stateless people. This has compelled people such as Roman to bring legal proceedings to officially secure a declaration of statelessness. He received that declaration in March 2014, the first person in Ireland to do so.

“I am very grateful to the Irish government for solving my problem, because it was a really complicated case. This seemed impossible for me but now I am very happy.”

However, problems still remain for others in Europe, including 90,000 people in Estonia who are still stateless.

As states mark the 60th anniversary of the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, UNHCR is launch a 10-year campaign to end statelessness on November 4th.

You can find out more by visiting http://ibelong.unhcr.org/en/home.do

To download the Special Report on Statelessness, please go to:

http://www.unhcr.org/statelesscampaign2014/Stateless-Report_eng_final3.pdf