Undocumented Nationals
Between Statelessness and Citizenship

Calls attention to and analyzes the plight of people who cannot exercise full citizenship due to evidentiary deficiencies.

Wendy Hunter (Author)

9781108701570, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 25 July 2019

75 pages
23 x 15.3 x 0.6 cm, 0.18 kg

Understood simply, people are either citizens of a country or stateless. Yet reality belies this dichotomy. Between absolute statelessness and full citizenship exist millions of people who are nationals of a country in principle but lack the identity documents to prove it, beginning with a birth certificate. Languishing in a gray zone, undocumented nationals have difficulty accessing the full services and rights that their documented counterparts enjoy. Drawing on a range of country examples, Undocumented Nationals: Between Statelessness and Citizenship calls attention to and analyzes the plight of people who cannot exercise full citizenship owing to evidentiary deficiencies. The existing literature has not adequately conceptualized and examined this in-between status, which results sometimes from state neglect and other times from intentional state discrimination. By highlighting its causes and consequences, and exploring ways to address the problem, this Cambridge Element addresses an important gap in the literature.

1. Introduction
2. Evidentiary statelessness in perspective
3. State neglect and unregistered/uncertified citizenship: illustrations from Latin America
4. Active denial of access to proof of nationality: excluding Haitian descendants in the Dominican Republic and Nubian descendants in Kenya.

Subject Areas: Citizenship & nationality law [LNDA], Civil rights & citizenship [JPVH1], Comparative politics [JPB], Political science & theory [JPA]