ASLI Working Paper Series

Publication Title ASEAN Cooperation on Ending Statelessness in ASEAN Region
Publisher Asian Law Institute
Series WPS042
Publication Date Oct 2020
Author/Speaker Su Yin Htun
Statelessness is now being the ASEAN regional issue in which the stateless people are not considered the right to any nationality that has articulated in the Universal Declaration on Human Rights 1948, “Everyone has the right to a nationality, and no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality”. However, according to UNHCR’s global trend report at the end of 2018, there are over one million of stateless people in ASEAN countries. Most of those people are de jure stateless people by the discriminatory Laws and some are de facto stateless people by the geopolitics. Meanwhile, most of the ASEAN countries use the jus sanguinis principle, i.e, the law of blood, in their domestic Laws. In this connection, stateless people can never be the citizens of any State. The stateless people suffer not only the right to nationality but also the fundamental human rights which are provided in International Human Rights Law. Particularly in Myanmar, the consequences of the statelessness occurred the human rights crisis and sectarian violence what are not internationally accepted. The paper approaches the situations of statelessness in ASEAN region, geographical features, concerned activities of ASEAN three main pillars, legal outlook of statelessness, and difficulties and challenges to cooperate for solving the stateless issues. The paper suggests to strengthen the ASEAN cooperation pursuant to ASEAN vision 2025 for dynamic development. The paper asks for collective responsibilities of ASEAN to support the stateless people with any contribution of civil documentation or right to nationality.
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