Statelessness in Southeast Asia: Causes and Responses to a Protracted Problem

Statelessness in Southeast Asia: Causes and Responses to a Protracted Problem
Date
Thu April 25th 2019, 12:00 - 1:15pm
Event Sponsor
WSD Handa Center for Human Rights & Int'l Justice
Location
Encina Hall East, Room E409 (Goldman Room)
Speaker:

Statelessness is a phenomenon that affects millions of people worldwide. Those who are not considered nationals by any state face daily obstructions from lack of access to a range of social, political and economic rights, with significant adverse impacts on their living conditions. Around 40 percent of the identified stateless population of the world live in the Asia Pacific region. Southeast Asia and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) harbor some of the largest stateless populations in Asia. The forced mass exodus of Rohingya has brought home to ASEAN member states the cross-border implications of unresolved situations of statelessness. Other large-scale stateless populations reside in Thailand and Cambodia.

This talk takes stock of ASEAN member states’ stance on statelessness. It maps some of the predominant causes of statelessness in the region and examines why the matter remains such an intractable problem. The talk provides an overview of states’ responses to address statelessness and locates these within broader global initiatives to reduce or resolve situations of statelessness.

Christoph Sperfeldt is Senior Research Fellow at the Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness at Melbourne Law School and a fellow at the WSD Handa Center for Human Rights and International Justice at Stanford University. He completed his PhD candidacy at the School of Regulation and Global Governance (RegNet), Australian National University. Prior to this, Christoph was Deputy Director at the Asian International Justice Initiative, a joint program of the East-West Center and the Handa Center, where he has supported human rights and rule of law capacity-building efforts in Southeast Asia. From 2007 to 2011, he was Senior Advisor with the Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) in Cambodia.

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