GENEVA – Geneva Council for Rights and Liberties participated in the High Level Segment on Statelessness that took place today at the UN headquarters in Geneva as part of the UNHCR Executive Committee meeting.
The high-level session aimed to assess the progress made midway through the #Ibelong campaign and to make pledges for further action to end statelessness by 2024.
The session was chaired by the Permanent Representative of Algeria to the United Nations, Ambassador Boudjemaa Delmi and moderated by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Mr Filippo Grandi. Among those present were Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohamed, UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador Cate Blanchett, journalist and British television presenter Anita Rani and the activist, former refugee and stateless person, Ms Maha Mamo, the High Commissioner for National Minorities of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Mr Lamberto Zannier and numerous non-governmental organizations working on issues of stateless. Participants were unanimous in that there is a need for States to abide by their obligations and put them into effect by submitting instruments of formal accession to the statelessness treaties
In 2014, UNHCR launched the #Ibelong global campaign with the main goal of ending statelessness by 2024.
Fifteen states have recently acceded to the two main treaties on statelessness, 1954 United Nations Convention on the Status of Stateless Persons and 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness.
Geneva Council for Rights and Liberties conducts advocacy activities ono the issue of stateless persons at the international level. The Council joined an initiative organized by the Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion , an international non-governmental organization based in the Netherlands, signed by 125 international non-governmental organizations. In a joint statement, we condemned the 1.9 million people being stripped of their citizenship in the Indian state of Assam as the largest scale denial of citizenship following a long-term census, the final results of which were published on 31 August.
Geneva Council also prepared a report on stateless minority in the United Arab Emirates, known as the Bidoon. The report gave overview of their poor conditions and assessed human rights violations stemming from stateless status. In addition, the Council organized an international side event during the 42nd session of the UN Human Rights Council on the issue of the Bidoon in the Middle East, in October together with the International Eurasia Press Fund, the International Institute for Rights and Development, the Gulf Center for Human Rights and the United Towns Agency For North-South Cooperation
