Vietnamese Nguyen Thi Puong, 36, right, at the house of her mother Mai Thi Lieu, 58. Phuong married a Taiwanese man but was abandoned by her husband because she gave birth to two daughters instead of sons. At the present she has neither Vietnamese nor Taiwanese citizenship. Photo:UNHCR/C. Doan 2007

2008-11-04

Finland joins Conventions on nationality

Can you imagine what it would be like to discover one morning that you don’t have a nationality any longer? No country to call your own, no country that calls YOU it’s own.

You can’t obtain a passport which means you can’t travel anywhere, but then again perhaps you couldn’t afford to anyway since you may not be allowed to work.

If you fall ill you can’t go to a hospital and your children can’t go to school.

That’s what reality might look like for millions of stateless persons in the world.

There are international conventions that aim to resolve the problem of statelessness, and Finland is the most recent country to join two of these.

On November 5 the 1961 UN Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness will come into force in Finland.

On December 1 Finland also joins the European Convention on Nationality from 1997. The objective of the Conventions is to reduce and prevent statelessness.

The Finnish legislation on nationality was reviewed in 2003, with the international treaties on in mind. This means that Finnish legislation already has been in line with the Conventions since then.

It is, for example, impossible to lose your Finnish nationality if statelessness would be the consequence. A child born on Finnish territory will always receive Finnish nationality, regardless of the parents’ nationalities.

The number of stateless people in Finland was at it’s highest in the mid-90’s, after the Soviet Union broke down. Today the problem is very small.

Hans ten Feld, Regional Representative for UNHCR in the Baltic and Nordic Countries says Finland’s joining is a significant step from an international point of view.

We welcome Finland’s accession to these important conventions on nationality. The more countries that are part of them, the easier it will be to find solutions to statelessness problems worldwide.

Finland is the 35th nation to join the 1961 Convention, and the first country to do so this year. The Finnish accession is an important signal to the world.

All the Nordic countries except for Iceland have joined the 1961 Convention and all, except Norway, have joined the European Convention on Nationality. Finland already acceded to the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons 40 years ago, in 1968.

Who are the stateless?

A stateless person is defined in the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons as "a person who is not considered as a national by any State under the operation of its law".

There are approximately 12 million stateless persons in the world, and their destiny often is to live in the outskirts of society, without entitlement to health care and education or the right to free movement. In some cases statelessness is passed on from the parents.

Statelessness can occur for various reasons. When a state dissolves into many separate states, it can lead to groups of people being left stateless, like in the Soviet Union, or former Yugoslavia.

Conflicts of nationality legislation also can lead to statelessness. Sometimes nationality can only be passed on by the father, in other cases only by birth on a certain territory, which means a child falls between chairs when it comes to acquiring a nationality.

Many children are not registered at birth which means they find it hard to claim any nationality later on. Sometimes statelessness is result of discrimination.

Few states have reliable statistics on stateless people, since the question is a delicate one.
UNHCR has a mandate that covers, apart from refugees, stateless persons all over the world.