Description
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Statelessness: The Enigma of the International Community 2014 by William Conklin
Statelessness is a legal status denoting lack of any nationality a status in which the otherwise normal link between an individual and a state is absent. The increasingly widespread problem of statelessness has profound legal social and economic consequences but also gives rise to the paradox of an international community which claims universal standards for all natural persons while allowing its member states to allow statelessness to occur. In this powerfully argued book Conklin critically evaluates traditional efforts to recognise and reduce statelessness. The problem he argues rests in the obligatory nature of law domestic or international. By closely analysing a broad spectrum of court and tribunal judgements from many jurisdictions Conklin explains how confusion has arisen between two discourses as to the nature of the international community. One discourse describes a community in which international law justifies the states freedom to confer withdraw or withhold ones nationality. This international community incorporates a states freedom over nationality matters risking statelessness. The other discourse highlights a legal bond of socially experienced relationships. Such a bond judicially referred to as effective nationality is binding upon all states and where such a bond exists harm to a stateless person represents harm to the international community as a whole.