Just to use one example I'm familiar with, by some estimates there are as many as 600,000 stateless people living in Thailand. There are lots of reasons but war refugees are a big chunk; hill tribe people who the government has been unwilling to issue citizenship to for generations are a big chunk.
Entire families live and die stateless. Alien travel documents exist in some circumstances (as referenced by this guide) but are a very obscure thing, hard to obtain and the process may be arbitrary, airline staff and border immigration officers are frequently not familiar with them, etc.
This is usually not a status that anyone holds voluntarily; they are displaced at some point and the government which controls the territory they are displaced into does not want to enfranchise them, or even their descendants.
All told globally there are 4-5 million stateless people.
"Taejun Shin was born and raised in Japan as the son of Korean immigrants who became stateless around the time of Japan's surrender in WWII. He found himself in the difficult position of being a stateless entrepreneur but ultimately founded Gojo & Company – a non-profit focused on promoting global financial inclusion."
> Born and raised in Japan and Japan won't give him citizenship?
Unrestricted jus soli (extending nationality unconditionally to those born in the territory of the state, regardless of ancestry) is largely an American (as in "of the Americas", not merely "of the United States of America", though the latter is a significant reason why it is true of the former) thing, though there are a few countries outside of the Americas who do it as well.
Some more countries have restricted jus soli, extended to those born in the territory of the state only if the government judges them to be ineligible for nationality by the law of any other state, or perhaps only if the parents are actually stateless, as a way to mitigate statelessness. (And states who have adopted a rule of this type for this purpose may have done so after the UN Convention on stateless persons in 1954, and may not have applied it retroactively.)
I am surprised by his situation as I know of the Zainichi Koreans here (Korean citizens who were born and raised in Japan and live here as an ethnic minority). My understanding of the situation is that they legally are able to naturalize and a significant minority of them do so, but many don't as they would have to renounce Korean citizenship.
I do find it quite unusual that he would not be allowed to naturalize after living all his life here and being married to a Japanese citizen, so perhaps there are other exceptional circumstances. Or perhaps his statelessness isn't something he is actively trying to resolve, having found ways to work around it when he needs to travel and do other things.
I believe it's a fairly common approach, so singling out Japan this way sounds a bit unfair. For sore Switzerland does it the same manner, for example.
I knew someone in the 90s who was born in Sarajevo and was stateless after whatever country he was born in (I'm going to say Yugoslavia?) ceased to exist. Searching this now I see the UNHCR had a campaign to get such people papers[1] so I guess he would have resolved this by now. Anyway at the time he was living in Britain as a refugee and couldn't or didn't want to leave the country, fearing that he either wouldn't be able to leave (because no other country would let him enter), or wouldn't be able to return.
The US is one of very few countries not signed up to various anti-statelessness conventions, and they will allow you to renounce your citizenship without having another to fall back on.[0] This has been used a handful of times over the decades by activists (particularly during the Vietnam War). Perhaps the most recent prominent recent examples are Mike Gogulski,[1] who now resides in Slovakia, and Glen Lee Roberts,[2] who resides in Paraguay.
But the US is, of course, a fairly unique case here. Most people become stateless due to state persecution (famously many Jews were stripped of their German citizenship by the 1935 Nuremberg laws, and many Kurds were denied Syrian citizenship under Assad) or by falling through weird administrative cracks (for example, see the cases of Mehran Karimi Nasseri [3] and Shamima Begum [4]). There are also cases (e.g. many Druze in Israel and the occupied Golan Heights) who refuse to accept citizenship they are offered on political grounds,[5] who would be considered de facto stateless if they do not have another recognised citizenship (though I'm not sure how Israeli citizenship works; the US considers you a citizen with worldwide tax obligations whether you accept it or not).
The interim solution is to get a 1954 Convention Travel Document[6] from one of the signatory states, which functions like a passport (and taxes in most countries are levied based on residence, rather than citizenship, so you'll still be paying them already). For a permanent solution, you'd need to go through the normal naturalisation process to become a citizen of a new country.
Shamima Begum was not a "weird administrative crack", it was intentional persecution of someone born in the UK who was roped into terrorism as a minor.
I was referring to the government's stated case (whether or not one believes that they really believed it) that it was not in breach of its legal obligations to strip her of British citizenship because she was eligible for Bangladeshi citizenship, which the government of Bangladesh denied, leaving her stateless.
Not all of them, but somewhere around half of them are.
I'm not entirely sure how that works out and which citizenship someone living in Gaza or the Westbank would fall under. In any case I can't imagine that a Palestinian passport holds much value.
You can be technically a citizen, but unable to prove that due to administrative errors or your parents bullshit. One weird case I remember from the news was people believing in the "sovereign citizens" thing and not exchanging their ussr passports to Ukrainian passport, than having a child and either not registering their birth or doing something of that kind.
As a result the parents can get citizenship, but don't want to, as authorities don't bother them much, but their now adult child is technically a citizen, but doesn't have paperwork to prove their status.
Generally, one has no choice in the matter. It happens during times of war, or under narrow legal circumstances beyone one's control. Those who claim to deliberately make themselves stateless (to avoid being drafted or avoid paying taxes) are ussually very misinformed about relevant laws. Citizenship is not an asset to be doffed or traded away when it no longer suits.
Just to use one example I'm familiar with, by some estimates there are as many as 600,000 stateless people living in Thailand. There are lots of reasons but war refugees are a big chunk; hill tribe people who the government has been unwilling to issue citizenship to for generations are a big chunk.
There is reform under discussion to grant PR and/or citizenship to a majority of them - https://thailand.un.org/en/285279-unhcr-supports-thailand-ma...
Entire families live and die stateless. Alien travel documents exist in some circumstances (as referenced by this guide) but are a very obscure thing, hard to obtain and the process may be arbitrary, airline staff and border immigration officers are frequently not familiar with them, etc.
This is usually not a status that anyone holds voluntarily; they are displaced at some point and the government which controls the territory they are displaced into does not want to enfranchise them, or even their descendants.
All told globally there are 4-5 million stateless people.
"Taejun Shin was born and raised in Japan as the son of Korean immigrants who became stateless around the time of Japan's surrender in WWII. He found himself in the difficult position of being a stateless entrepreneur but ultimately founded Gojo & Company – a non-profit focused on promoting global financial inclusion."
From an interview with the author: https://www.weforum.org/stories/2022/09/young-global-leaders...
Born and raised in Japan and Japan won't give him citizenship? Jesus I knew they were xenophobic but wow.
The author can get citizenship[1] but chooses not to for what seems like activist reasons.
[1]: https://taejun.substack.com/p/founders-peak-speech-script
> Born and raised in Japan and Japan won't give him citizenship?
Unrestricted jus soli (extending nationality unconditionally to those born in the territory of the state, regardless of ancestry) is largely an American (as in "of the Americas", not merely "of the United States of America", though the latter is a significant reason why it is true of the former) thing, though there are a few countries outside of the Americas who do it as well.
Some more countries have restricted jus soli, extended to those born in the territory of the state only if the government judges them to be ineligible for nationality by the law of any other state, or perhaps only if the parents are actually stateless, as a way to mitigate statelessness. (And states who have adopted a rule of this type for this purpose may have done so after the UN Convention on stateless persons in 1954, and may not have applied it retroactively.)
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I am surprised by his situation as I know of the Zainichi Koreans here (Korean citizens who were born and raised in Japan and live here as an ethnic minority). My understanding of the situation is that they legally are able to naturalize and a significant minority of them do so, but many don't as they would have to renounce Korean citizenship.
I do find it quite unusual that he would not be allowed to naturalize after living all his life here and being married to a Japanese citizen, so perhaps there are other exceptional circumstances. Or perhaps his statelessness isn't something he is actively trying to resolve, having found ways to work around it when he needs to travel and do other things.
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Birthright citizenship is increasingly controversial in a lot of countries, not just Japan.
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I believe it's a fairly common approach, so singling out Japan this way sounds a bit unfair. For sore Switzerland does it the same manner, for example.
I knew someone in the 90s who was born in Sarajevo and was stateless after whatever country he was born in (I'm going to say Yugoslavia?) ceased to exist. Searching this now I see the UNHCR had a campaign to get such people papers[1] so I guess he would have resolved this by now. Anyway at the time he was living in Britain as a refugee and couldn't or didn't want to leave the country, fearing that he either wouldn't be able to leave (because no other country would let him enter), or wouldn't be able to return.
[1] https://bosniaherzegovina.un.org/en/234262-live-without-nati...
Jordan made almost 1 million people stateless in 1988 when they revoked citizenship of their citizens who resided in the west bank.
The US is one of very few countries not signed up to various anti-statelessness conventions, and they will allow you to renounce your citizenship without having another to fall back on.[0] This has been used a handful of times over the decades by activists (particularly during the Vietnam War). Perhaps the most recent prominent recent examples are Mike Gogulski,[1] who now resides in Slovakia, and Glen Lee Roberts,[2] who resides in Paraguay.
But the US is, of course, a fairly unique case here. Most people become stateless due to state persecution (famously many Jews were stripped of their German citizenship by the 1935 Nuremberg laws, and many Kurds were denied Syrian citizenship under Assad) or by falling through weird administrative cracks (for example, see the cases of Mehran Karimi Nasseri [3] and Shamima Begum [4]). There are also cases (e.g. many Druze in Israel and the occupied Golan Heights) who refuse to accept citizenship they are offered on political grounds,[5] who would be considered de facto stateless if they do not have another recognised citizenship (though I'm not sure how Israeli citizenship works; the US considers you a citizen with worldwide tax obligations whether you accept it or not).
The interim solution is to get a 1954 Convention Travel Document[6] from one of the signatory states, which functions like a passport (and taxes in most countries are levied based on residence, rather than citizenship, so you'll still be paying them already). For a permanent solution, you'd need to go through the normal naturalisation process to become a citizen of a new country.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statelessness#United_States
[1] https://www.vice.com/en/article/a-bum-without-a-country-0000...
[2] https://dollarvigilante.com/2015/07/20/interview-with-glen-r...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mehran_Karimi_Nasseri#Life_in_...
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamima_Begum#Citizenship
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Druze_in_Israel#Status_of_Druz...
[6] https://travel.stackexchange.com/a/8745
Shamima Begum was not a "weird administrative crack", it was intentional persecution of someone born in the UK who was roped into terrorism as a minor.
I was referring to the government's stated case (whether or not one believes that they really believed it) that it was not in breach of its legal obligations to strip her of British citizenship because she was eligible for Bangladeshi citizenship, which the government of Bangladesh denied, leaving her stateless.
Palestinian aren't de facto stateless too?
Not all of them, but somewhere around half of them are.
I'm not entirely sure how that works out and which citizenship someone living in Gaza or the Westbank would fall under. In any case I can't imagine that a Palestinian passport holds much value.
You can be technically a citizen, but unable to prove that due to administrative errors or your parents bullshit. One weird case I remember from the news was people believing in the "sovereign citizens" thing and not exchanging their ussr passports to Ukrainian passport, than having a child and either not registering their birth or doing something of that kind.
As a result the parents can get citizenship, but don't want to, as authorities don't bother them much, but their now adult child is technically a citizen, but doesn't have paperwork to prove their status.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statelessness
Generally, one has no choice in the matter. It happens during times of war, or under narrow legal circumstances beyone one's control. Those who claim to deliberately make themselves stateless (to avoid being drafted or avoid paying taxes) are ussually very misinformed about relevant laws. Citizenship is not an asset to be doffed or traded away when it no longer suits.
> I’m not sure how many frequent travelers actually travel without a passport
If you actually bothered for 3 seconds with checking actual article, its very first line
That doesn't answer either of his questions.