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Unwanted citizenship Part 3 – Statehood, interrupted: passportisation as a tool of occupation

Passportisation Ukraine

In the last two Torn Identity blogs I looked at citizenship and statelessness through the prism of occupation, with Western Sahara as a case study.  Recent events in Ukraine, and the earlier occupation of the Crimea and Donbas regions, demonstrate that the use of citizenship as a tool of occupation, through what has been called ‘passportisation’, remains a live issue …

Recognition turns to registration – how the Shona Community won the right to Kenyan citizenship

Shona Community

I previously wrote about two marginalised communities in Kenya, the Nubian and the Somali communities, and their struggle to obtain legal status and citizenship. Both communities face burdens not imposed on most other Kenyans. But they are not alone in campaigning for recognition as citizens of Kenya.  In this blog I reflect on the recent progress made by the Shona …

Recent case law on statelessness in South Africa – Mulowayi v Minister for Home Affairs

Statelessness in South Africa

The current issue of the excellent Statelessness & Citizenship Review is out now.  I was delighted to be asked to contribute a case note to this year’s volume.  Mulowayi v Minister of Home Affairs is an appeal to the South African Constitutional Court from a decision of the High Court of South Africa dealing with the validity of a regulation …

Covid-19 – How the stateless virus is affecting stateless people

Covid-19

I had every intention of posting new blogs at the usual twice-monthly rate as the Covid-19 outbreak started.  After all, now that I am in lockdown and not commuting to work, would I not have much more time for this and all manner of other (indoor) activities? I had not appreciated how much head space would be taken up with …

A scattered people – remembering the Nansen Armenians

Nansen Armenians

“The people of the earth have thus entered in varying degrees into a universal community, and it has developed to the point where a violation of rights in one part of the world is felt everywhere. The idea of a cosmopolitan right is therefore not fantastic and overstrained; it is a necessary complement to the unwritten code of political and …