863 Comparative Perspectives on Statelessness and Persecution Maryellen Fullerton * I. INTRODUCTION In a world of nation states, citizens rely on their states for protection. The U.S. Foreign Affairs Manual proclaims: “The U.S. Department of State and our embassies and consulates abroad have no greater responsibility than the protection of U.S. citizens overseas.” 1 The Vienna Convention on Consular Relations states that the core of consular functions consists of protecting “the interests of the sending State and of its nationals.” 2 Yet, in today’s world, millions of individuals lack state protection. The stateless and refugees comprise two of the major groups that, in the words of former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren, lack “the right to have rights.” 3 Stateless people cannot claim membership in any of the more than 190 states in the international system. No state views them as integral members of the national community. As noncitizens, they cannot access the levers of power; they cannot access the courts; they cannot access the law. In a world of nation states, the stateless fall between the cracks. The lack of state protection is the defining characteristic of statelessness. “Remove [citizenship] and there remains a stateless person, disgraced and degraded in the eyes of his countrymen. He has no lawful claim to * Professor of Law, Brooklyn Law School. I thank Brooklyn Law School for its generous support and Alexander Eleftherakis for excellent research assistance. 1. U.S. DEP’T OF STATE, 7 FOREIGN AFFAIRS MANUAL 011(a) (2012). 2. Vienna Convention on Consular Relations and Optional Protocol on Disputes art. 5(a), Apr. 24, 1963, 21 U.S.T. 77, 596 U.N.T.S. 261. 3. Perez v. Brownell, 356 U.S. 44, 64 (1958) (Warren, J., dissenting), overruled in part by Afroyim v. Rusk, 387 U.S. 253 (1967). Earlier, Hannah Arendt had written: “We became aware of the existence of a right to have rights (and that means to live in a framework where one is judged by one’s actions and opinions) and a right to belong to some kind of organized community, only when millions of people emerged who had lost and could not regain these rights because of the new global political situation . . . . Only with a completely organized humanity could the loss of home and political status become identical with expulsion from humanity altogether.” HANNAH ARENDT, THE ORIGINS OF TOTALITARIANISM 294 (1951).
Comparative Perspectives on Statelessness and Persecution
Aug 03, 2023
Welcome message from author
This document is posted to help you gain knowledge. Please leave a comment to let me know what you think about it! Share it to your friends and learn new things together.
Related Documents
