Seminar paper from the year 2015 in the subject Law - Public Law / Constitutional Law / Basic Rights, grade: noch zu erwarten, Tilburg University, language: English, abstract: Nationality can be seen as the rights to have rights and is protected by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. However do various scenarios exist which might leave a person stateless. Being without a nationality comes with an increased vulnerability to violations of various personal rights. In the Dominican Republic thousands of Dominicans of Haitian descent were recently stripped off their nationality. This report will explain and assess the situation, shine a light on the struggles those individuals have to face and evaluate possible solutions that could be undertaken in order to address the problem. In order to fully understand the nature of the statelessness issue of the Dominican Republic it is necessary to turn back to the year of 2004 in which the country started to gradually change its citizenship laws. In the 1940s the need for cheap labour called many Haitians to the Dominican Republic where the immigrants enjoyed the benefits of a constitutional right to Dominican citizenship to everyone born inside the country irrespectively of the migration status of the parents. Originally this jus soli citizenship knew only two exceptions: Diplomats and children born to parents “in transit” – a term legally defined as “being within the country for ten days or less”. But in 2004 the new Migration Law 285/04 de facto revoked the promise of birthright citizenship for Dominicans of Haitian descent by broaden the definition of “in transit” to henceforward also include nonresidents – including all migrant workers who had been working and living in the country for years, leaving them unable to register their Dominican‐born children as Dominican citizens henceforth.

This book offers a critical perspective into social policy architectures primarily in relation to questions of race, national identity and belonging in the Americas. It is the first to identify a connection between the role of international actors in promoting the universal provision of legal identity in the Dominican Republic with arbitrary measures to restrict access to citizenship paperwork from populations of (largely, but not exclusively) Haitian descent. The book highlights the current gap in global policy that overlooks the possible alienating effects of social inclusion measures promulgated by international organisations, particularly in countries that discriminate against migrant-descended populations. It also supports concerns regarding the dangers of identity management, noting that as administrative systems improve, new insecurities and uncertainties can develop. Crucially, the book provides a cautionary tale over the rapid expansion of identification practices, offering a timely critique of global policy measures which aim to provide all people everywhere with a legal identity in the run-up to the 2030 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).