Van Waas, L.E. (October, 2010).”The situation of stateless persons in the Middle East and North Africa”, UNHCR.
This paper provides an overview of the situation of stateless persons in countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). It provides an analysis of the underlying conditions that have shaped these states’ legislation and provides a description of how the laws, policies and practices of MENA countries have impacted on the incidence and treatment of stateless persons within their borders. The paper includes examples of best practices that have been identified in the course of studying the response to statelessness across the MENA region.
The information provided in this paper has been extracted from existing documents, reports and studies (drawing on information as at June 2010). Please note that the verification of information compiled from these sources remains the responsibility of the respective author(s). References are provided and a full bibliography is included.
For the purposes of this study, the MENA region has been defined as comprising of the following 18 countries: Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Occupied Palestinian Territories, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen.