Twelve million stateless people

There are twelve million stateless persons in the world: people who are not citizens of any state. It may seem few people because we are 7,000 millions inhabitants in the world, but take into account that, out of the 250 states in the world, only 72 have more than 12 million inhabitants.
Who are these stateless persons? They are people not considered as a national by a state, people belonging to an ethnic minority not considered to be citizens, people who renounced to their nationality for several reasons, people born in territories claimed by different countries… Stateless persons are trapped in a legal limbo, affecting their life in many ways: if they are not nationals, they are deprived of basic rights as citizens. They cannot work legally, which makes them accept the worst job posts with the worst conditions to be exploited; they cannot own properties or open a bank account; they cannot have access to education (sometimes not even basic education), which prevents them from escaping from poverty; they cannot vote or be represented in governments to improve their situation; they have no access to the judicial system in case of problems or exploitation and, in some countries, they cannot even get married.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is the international UN agency mandated to protect stateless people, as well as refugees and displaced persons. But this problem is not taken seriously and very few actions have been taken. In 1954 the Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons was approved by the UN to set the base for international protection of stateless persons, and in 1961 the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness was signed, but most countries paid no attention to it. In fact, only 55 countries signed the 1954 convention and only 27 countries signed the 1961 convention. It seems that not many people are willing to get committed to improve the life conditions of stateless persons.
Article 15 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights provides that “everyone has the right to a nationality and no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality”. This is another right that most states do not care to comply with.Sources:

1. How many countries are there in the world? A post at Delivering Data about this question: http://www.deliveringdata.com/2010/08/how-many-countries-are-there-in-world.html
2. List of countries by number of inhabitants: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population
3. UNHCR website about stateless persons: http://www.unhcr.org/pages/49c3646c155.html
4. Text of the Convention relating to the Status of Stateless persons approved by the UN in 1954:  http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/stateless.htm
5. Text of the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness approved by the UN in 1961:  http://untreaty.un.org/ilc/texts/instruments/english/conventions/6_1_1961.pdf
6. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml
7. You can find further information about stateless persons in these reports:

• Statelessness: An Analytical Framework for Prevention, reduction and protection, a report published by UNHCR in 2008: http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/pdfid/49a28afb2.pdf
• Issue of Forced Migration Review (2009) devoted to stateless persons: http://www.fmreview.org/FMRpdfs/FMR32/FMR32.pdf

    
    
     

Will we ever get arms under control?

Last year we wrote a post in our blog about the international campaign Control Arms. It isn’t just any campaign: it is one of the most important steps made by human beings to live in a peaceful world. And the crucial time for this campaign, which was launched almost ten years ago, is next July, when the Arms Trade Treaty Diplomatic Conference shall decide whether this treaty is enacted.
Why is there no international treaty regulating arms trade? This question was asked by a group of Nobel Peace Prizes at the end of the 90s, and it eventually materialized in the Control Arms campaign in 2003, which was promoted by such civil society associations as Amnesty International and Oxfam.
As there are no laws regulating arms trade, arms dealers can sell their stuff everywhere, even in countries violating essential human rights. As arms trading is unpunished, one out of every ten people has a weapon and every year 12,000 million bullets are manufactured, which are enough to kill twice all the inhabitants of our planet. And this is not just a threat: every day 2,000 people die due to this trade.
If we had an international treaty regulating arms trade worldwide, we could end up with the selling of arms and ammunition in countries where human rights are at risk, and we could prevent genocides and avoid a never-ending poverty. For instance, such a treaty would urge the Spanish government –one of the countries strongly involved in arms trade—to account for it before international laws.
So far, this campaign has been quite effective. In 2006, the then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan was convinced, and 153 countries cast a favourable vote to draw a treaty about arms control. Only one country rejected this treaty: the United States. Now, in July, it is the definitive voting and the civil society should put pressure to counteract the arms lobby.
All kinds of campaigns are important, but this campaign is crucial because the future of millions of people is at stake. We should all do our bit to make this treaty come true. You can put pressure, talk about it with your friends, gather information about this treaty and sign here to support this campaign.
 
Sources:

1. Post at Delivering Data about the campaign Control Arms:  http://www.deliveringdata.com/2011/05/civil-society-claims-control-over-arms.html
2. Website of this campaign: http://www.controlarms.org/home
3. Arms Trade Treaty Diplomatic Conference: http://www.un.org/disarmament/convarms/ATTPrepCom/
4. Resources about this treaty: http://www20.gencat.cat/portal/site/icip/menuitem.a0d8dad669f5ec7556159f10b0c0e1a0/?vgnextoid=34a4ea341fe60310VgnVCM1000008d0c1e0aRCRD&vgnextchannel=34a4ea341fe60310VgnVCM1000008d0c1e0aRCRD&vgnextfmt=default&newLang=en_GB
5. Sign here to support the Control Arms campaign: http://www.controlarms.org/join.php?lang=

     
     
     
     

Misinterpretations about the wealth and poverty of nations

Last week the Eurovision Song Contest 2012 was held. Some days earlier, the Spanish contestant Pastora Soler made some controversial statement insinuating that she was asked not to win this contest because Spain cannot afford to stage the next edition. And we quote: “Azerbaijan can afford it because we know that this is country has oil, but we do not, so we must first get out of our dire straits ".
Regardless of this controversial statement (which is curious enough because everybody knows how Eurovision Song Contest works), we should pay close attention to her words about Azerbaijan. Let’s start with some data from the website of Action against hunger:

• Despite its wealth thanks to oil, 50% of Azerbaijani population lives under the poverty threshold.
• Children chronic malnutrition rate is 25%.
• 31.8% of children have low iron levels.
• 20% of its population have no access to drinking water in good conditions.
• 55% of its population have no basic sanitation.

Then, why does Pastora Soler think that Azerbaijan is a rich country? Because this country has lots of oil, which in turn generates wealth. Pastora Soler made a mistake which is common not only for contestants of such tacky international contests but also for the great majority of all of us: we often mistake GDP per capita for richness of the population.
This mistake is often reproduced in the world of sports. A typical and long debated case is Qatar, sponsoring Football Club Barcelona, which appears at the top of the list of richest countries according to GDP per capital, drawn by the International Monetary Fund. Football Club Barcelona and some supportive mass media argue that Qatar is a Switzerland-like nation of the Persian Gulf, but in fact Qatar is a dictatorship where immigrant workers (80% of its population) are exploited and women are legally discriminated.
[And to avoid resentment, we can add that Real Madrid Football Club is sponsored by Fly Emirates, the main airlines of Arab Emirates, another dictatorship with a similar situation as in Qatar, so it makes no difference...].
In short: Pastora Soler is not to be blamed because she did not do it out of malice. But we should be all more careful when talking about a country’s richness or poverty.

Sources:

1. Pastora Soler’s statement: http://www.formulatv.com/noticias/25129/pastora-soler-tve-pedido-no-gane-eurovision-gasto-supone-organizar-festival
2. Some data about Azerbaijan: http://www.accioncontraelhambre.org/ficha_pais.php/id_map/95/pais/azerbaiyan
3. List of countries according to their GDP per capita: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PPP%29_per_capita
4. 2011 report about human rights in Qatar drawn by Amnesty International: http://www.amnesty.org/en/region/qatar/report-2011
5. 2011 report about human rights in United Arab Emirates drawn by Amnesty International: http://www.amnesty.org/en/region/uae/report-2011