URU, Alm.del - 2021-22 - Bilag 89: Henvendelse af 30. november 2021 fra P. David J. Cooke om FN's statsløsekonvention

Udenrigsudvalget 2021-22
URU Alm.del Bilag 89
Offentligt

The Foreign Policy Committee,

Folkinget,

Christiansborg,

1240 Copenhagen K

Denmark.

Ph. 45 3337 5500

P.O. Box 17,

7 St. Nino St.,

Kutaisi 4602,

Georgia.

30/11/21

Dear Sir! Madam,

I am writing to you as representative of one of 3 states who

signed the Convention on the

Status of Stateless Persons in 1954 but who did flot partic

ipate in the formulation of the Protocol

amendment of 1961.

Enciosed is a report of the work of British judge Gerald Fitzm

aurice on the nature of

humanitarian treaties. In it he alleges that in his view an amen

dment to a multilateral treaty taken

without the agreement of the original framer parties is void.

That would put your 3 states in the box seat

as far as concerns the way stateless law is now conducted

by states around the world.

As you may know, a frequent position today is that statel

ess applicants can’t get citizenship

docurneiation, whiie app)icants protesting government iflega

l action and persecution apply for refugee

status. This posture ignores the category of renunciation

stateless application, which is entirely defined

and regulated in the 1954 Convention. The Protocol stress

es the virtue of eliminating statelessness, and

as a consequence it appears a majority of states today

are conspiring to close the perceived

window/loophole of renunciation by relying on the amen

dment and passing national Iaws denying and

refusing renunciation in conjunction with apptication

for statelessness, effectively.

This posture is something of an ironic position designed

to satirise the potential renunciant.

However, since the Protocol has been passed and is large

ly observed, the question appears to be one of

how in fact renunciant applicants for stateless status can

effect the legislation still existent in the

Convention text. From a wider perspective, the question

seems to be what are the consequences of

states’ current position, and is the effective ‘criminalization

’ of renunciation some kind of

coup d’etat

against the individual by states and what can be done abou

t it? No doubt alI three states have current

positions aligned with the majority of states, but as three

with historical associations suggesting original

skepticism of the Protocol’s possible effect, you may be

in a position to express some kind of rider of

dissent or word of caution as to this worldwide trend. Whil

e Fitzmaurice’ recommendations as to

voiding unassented treaties was flot accepted as part of

the

Vienna

Convention on

the Low ofTreaties

and might have no legal effect, you are in a unique posit

ion to express any kind of objection to the trend

that still exists in your countries from your historical legac

y. In this respect, I note alI three have strong

or unusual legal traditions suggesting a racial consciousness

more attuned to the practice, meaning and

effect of legal traditions.

URU, Alm.del - 2021-22 - Bilag 89: Henvendelse af 30. november 2021 fra P. David J. Cooke om FN's statsløsekonvention

If you would cate to comment on your country’s position on this question, please reply

to the above P.O. Box address. You probably know the U.N. still support renunciation applications even

when the country of former citizenship refuses to approve the renunciation. However getting the

documentation and status is the proof of the pudding, and inevitably this involves applications to

particular countries. Effectively many tend only to back up this current line of ironic interpretation, and

it appears another solution is necessary, possibly if flot this one then a return to customary law

or a

move forward to a treaty flot forged by states who in fact deny the rights such treaties are intended

protect, but by private citizens determined to forge a worldwide protection against the ability of states

to enforce compliance to regimes the individual is able to perceive have violated norms of behaviour in

some way and are in fact violating the large majority of citizens’ rights by this specious argument in

favour of this one

‘/

a right in the Deciaration, which is any case a right not a law or compulsion. The

current approach actually attempts to ‘criminalise’ becoming stateless, it cannot legislate the right

to its

own citizenship, the concept appears sound because of the word ‘statelessness’ in the Protocol but the

logic is actually quite flawed and bogus, its own citizenship is the kernel of the stateless case and is what

is refused by the individual who possesses the right, not the state.

Before you go ahead into the deep blue yonder therefore, it might behoove to consider

whether in fact any attempt by states to stymy the right of expatriation, based on genuine perception of

illegal or negligent behaviour by states, is flot a misconceived and ill-founded exercise leading to an

abuse of the asylum seeking process and frivolous use of bordet passage processes to waste such

seekers’ time and mislead them as to the result that can be achieved.

These treaties are flot there for the benefit of states, they are there for the benefit of

inclividuals who are victims of state abuse of varlous kinds. The 1954 Convention was conceived and

formulated by states inciuding your own living in the shadow of a six-year war to deflect the power of

rampant state power run amok. The parts reflecting renunciation applications, Articie 1(1) and the Final

Act Ill Recommendation, took up much of the formulation conference time and are conceived to reflect

the subtle, continuous and unsupportable denigration of people who have the title ‘citizen’ in name but

flot in practice or fact, as much as it is to those denied citizenship on unjust grounds. Individuals are flot

chattels of states but there is fair evidence to suggest that is the result engendered by the Protocol

amendment and the refusal to allow voluntary stateless status it legislates or effects. The former

Convention understood that the stateless state might be preferable to living in a country where

significant abuses were occurring. The Convention does flot involve states in dispensation of their own

citizenship as a matter of necessity.

Despite the unfortunate eveflts of 20 years ago, is it flot time to reflect on where the

current climate of statism is leading us, and to speak out about a right that was understood to be

important in 1954 but seven years later was already part of a considera ble return to state power among

Western countries and agaiflst individual rights of asylum. Ihese states do flot have inherent and

unchanging jurisdiction, they are impermanent creations erected on the back of a population of free and

indigenous individuals. Every inch of

dry

land on the planet is now in the territory of one or other of

these states, excepting Antarctica. There should be two methods for evading the jurisdiction of erring

states, flot just the one refugee mechanism entirely arbitered by states themselves. The conference that

created the Convention ensured there was sufficient protection to avoid abuse of the treaty by non-

URU, Alm.del - 2021-22 - Bilag 89: Henvendelse af 30. november 2021 fra P. David J. Cooke om FN's statsløsekonvention

genuine applicants, the objection voiced by Belgium. There is no reason the renunciation

route should

flot sll be a viable method of asylum since the Protocol’s passing, it is a loophole being grasped

upon by

staterum up support for its suppression.

To sum up the points supporting continued existence in practice of the renunciation

stateless category:

1/Failure to ensure swïft and possible expatrïation is tending to result in the state

emerging asa new feudal sovereign, the citizen effectively a chattel of the state;

2/ Renunciation was an important part of the agenda in the original conference forging

stateless law, the current trend and Protocol tend to completely reverse that stress, appearing

to deny

and reverse some of the post-war reasons for formulating the treaty. Approval of renunciation

statelessness is clear in the Convention Recommendation and arguably the i (1) definition,

‘amendment’ can amend it cannot reverse, valid legal arguments should centre on mutual

obligations

versus the nature of humanitarian law, flot the meaning of the word stateless and compellin

g nationality

right, which are ironic and deliberate reversals of the law’s intentions;

3/ States ‘enforcing’ one half of a right in the Universal Deciaration is flot how rights are

supposed to work; rights except for those of prisoners of war can be waived and are the person’s

flot

the state’s, a renunciee is prepared to accept lesser conditions to achieve his purpose, states do flot

often accept rights argumere nations choose to enshrine them in national law;

4/ State strtictures are exerting a draconian control over the usable environment of the

earth’s surface; access to sustainable environmental resources is denied and attitudes encouraging

respect for the environment of the earth are flot the basis of perception of world-being is the

cause of

its degradation and the current exploitative world system and climate crisis; state structures are

impermanent flot eternal or self-existence-creating-proving;

5/ While it may be that states are generally the arbiters of who can g citizenship of a

country, it does not follow that it should entirely decide who gets to rejjce citizenship.

6/ Humanitarian multilateral treaty law is a somewhat different category from other

treaties, amendments tending to limit individual options in favour of states’ convenience should

rightly

be treated with suspicion, states do flot regulate these matters at least as far as a Convention has its

own jurisdiction, there is good evidence to suggest the Protocol amendment may have voided the

original and is in consequence itseif void at law in your state’s provenance,

yours etc.,

idJ.Cooke

URU, Alm.del - 2021-22 - Bilag 89: Henvendelse af 30. november 2021 fra P. David J. Cooke om FN's statsløsekonvention

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URU, Alm.del - 2021-22 - Bilag 89: Henvendelse af 30. november 2021 fra P. David J. Cooke om FN's statsløsekonvention

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