Topic: Rights of Stateless Persons
Country: Palestine
Delegate Name: Rachel Westrick
School: Forest Hills Eastern High School
Topic page: background guide and all position papers All Palestine position papers GLIMUN 2016 committees
The issue of statelessness is one of the most pressing humanity crises the world faces today. The international legal definition for a statelessness person is “a person who is not considered as a national by any State under the operation of its law,” and the UN High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR) estimates that there are over 10 million people who are denied the basic human right of nationality. Stateless populations are subject to a number of abuses–inability to go to school, to receive health care, to find employment, or to simply exercise their freedom movement–and they are forced to live vulnerable and restricted lives because of their statuses. Statelessness can occur because of gaps in nationality laws, changes or transfers of territory within new or existing States, or because of hostile discrimination against particular ethnic or religious groups. In 1954, the United Nations drafted the Convention to the Status of Stateless Persons, which affirms the universal human right to nationality and in which party states agree to treat stateless people equally with other non-nationals in matters of education, property rights, employment, and housing. But despite these measures, 104 member of the United Nations, including the United States, have not yet ratified the treaty, and there even continues to be abuses and discrimination to stateless people perpetrated by those who are signatories of the treaty, such as the Israeli occupying power. To prevent any further spread of statelessness and end the widespread abuses forced on the existing stateless populations, it becomes imperative that our council acknowledge the injustices endured by the the stateless Palestinians subject to the intrusive Israeli occupying power, the injustices endured by the stateless Rohingya people of Myanmar, and the injustices endured by the millions of other stateless people around the world. Our council must discuss ways to expand and enforce the 1954 Convention, ways to ensure stateless people have access to the services that they need, and ways to punish or penalize those powers who continue to perpetuate the problem of statelessness within their borders.
Because of the oppression of the Israeli occupying power and the disdain from the United States, the the Palestinian people residing in West Bank and Gaza Strip endure the most extreme case of large-scale statelessness in the world– over half of the eight million Palestinians are considered stateless. Since 1948, the Zionist scheme has been to erase Palestine as a political entity and to remove the Palestinian people from their homeland and replace them with unrestricted and unrestrained Jewish immigrants. Following the Israeli occupation of the West Bank in 1967, Israel disregarded international law and declared all Palestinians living in newly occupied Palestinian territory as non citizens and foreign inhabitants, and since have used unethical “legal” instruments in order to rob Palestinians of their IDs and residency rights– something necessary for Palestinians to live and travel. An Arab League protocol signed in 1965 set the basic guidelines–including full citizenship rights–regarding the treatment of Palestinian refugees, however, discrimination, mistreatment, and expulsion have followed Palestinians in all the nations member to the agreement but Syria (who is having a crisis of its own). This pervasive position of statelessness in the Palestinian community has a grave and long-term social and psychological impact. Without the freedom of movement and access to education and employment that full citizenship rights bring, the Palestinian people are more vulnerable to political instability, government abuse, discrimination, exploitation, and poverty. In addition, the large scale migration that results in the escape of abuse of statelessness is not only dangerous for the Palestinian migrants, but it also destabilizes the regions, especially the Middle East, that take in these refugees and creates a cycle of conflict and instability.
The Israeli occupying power and its American puppets are the source of this crisis. Our council should find way to condemn Israel for their heinous crimes against the Palestinian people that has perpetuated countless problems in the Middle East. Moreover, our council must discuss the possibility of regional frameworks–the host Arab countries for stateless Palestinians and host Southeast Asian countries for stateless Rohingya–based around a comprehensive peace agreement that gives stateless refugees options based around repatriation, compensation and full citizenship rights in their countries of residence. Although these peace agreements are necessary for the future of many stateless Palestinians, many past agreements have not been particularly effective, and the only long-term solution to the pervasive statelessness of the Palestinian people is for members of the United Nations–especially the United States–to recognize the State of Palestine as a sovereign nation for Palestinians to claim citizenship to. If our committee addresses the plight of the Palestinian people, discusses ways to reprimand the Israeli occupying power, discusses the merits and necessities of recognizing the sovereign Palestinian nation, and addresses the larger legal issues regarding statelessness and stateless people, then we may be able to solve the problems of the millions of stateless persons in the Palestine and beyond.
