The issue of statelessness in Europe

The variety of situations in which stateless people in the four countries studied in this project find themselves all have a place in the context of the conceptual, legal and political frameworks presented in the opening chapters of this book. Those situations represent the modern face of ‘rightlessness’, as discussed by Hannah Arendt, and there are both similarities and differences among the legal and social deprivations facing the various populations of undocumented and excluded people within our definition of the stateless. The starting point for this chapter is a review of those populations, and an attempt to highlight the ways in which their situation is distinct from that of citizens or those with a regularised status. We then consider how the status and experience of statelessness in Europe has developed since the time of Arendt's discussion, whether because of political or legal developments, in the context of the findings of the country studies.

The way in which people tend to become effectively stateless, at least in Western Europe, has changed since Arendt's time, and the country studies reflect the contrasting ways in which people may now find themselves establishing their lives in countries that do not accept them as citizens or members. Some of the populations considered in the research were migrants, whether lawful immigrants whose permission to remain had changed or expired, refused asylum seekers, or simply those who had arrived clandestinely and without permission.