Failures of Human Rights for Stateless Populations

The Failures of Universal Human Rights Codification for Stateless Populations Allison Brown HIST 4990 - Crimes Against Humanity Dr. Blackler 31 October, 2021 Following the unprecedented, world-wide conflicts of World War I and II, global victors advocated for the creation of homogenous states as a way to theoretically ease violence and persecution among minatory populations. Howevd eer, facto, it proved incredibly difficult to define which demographics comprise different states and where those nation-lines would exist based on racial, religious, and ethnic identities. These national borders and nationalistic divisions formed by statedetermined led to the gap in human rights codification for stateless populations. Stateless populations, in any form, are missing a key component to ensure their human rights, nationality to ensure their implementation. The hypocrisy of universal human rights alongside a lack of self-determination for stateless populations contribute to Arendt’s perceived shortcoming of human rights. Arendt’s “abstract nakedness” refers to when an individual is stripped of social states such as their nationality or religion, or whatever makes them a member of a group. Without these defining factors, Arendt argues it is easier for human rights violations to occur. Fundamentally, human rights codification was ineffectual without the enforcement of a nation, leading to the deficit in the protection of stateless populations, those lacking nationality, throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. In 1917, President Wilson ushered in a new era for human rights doctrine with the Fourteen Points, which called for the creation of homogenous states to be formed across Europe and the colonial sphere to maintain post-WWI “stability” and ensure the protection of minority populations. Various points called for new states to be drawn along lines of nationality. For example, the speech called for, “a readjustment of the frontiers of Italy” that would be drawn “along clearly recognizable lines of nationality.” 1 Similarly for Poland, Wilson recommended “an independent Polish state which would 2 include the territories inhabited indisputably Polish populations T.” he se excerpts and case examples from Wilson’s Fourteen Points affirms the global change to a system of nation states, and the role of 1 nationality in the implementation of human rights doctrine. Although statehood and the protection of nationality tended to support human rights, it is important to note that these protections were not absolute. By anchoring human rights to statehood, populations who did not identify with the majority were at severe risk of persecution and violence. Moreover, theoretically it seemed an easy task to establish country lines based on nationality, but in reality, different religious, ethnic, and other populations were dispersed throughout regions. In this era of nation-states, human rights were not individualized for those in society, but were anchored in the national community from a national government. From the Berlin Congress to the Paris Peace Conference, “human rights were widely proclaimed to be based in national citizenship, and that the nation, to the extent possible, should be homogenous in char3ac The ters.”e doctrines upheld President Wilson’s Fourteen Points and the inherent protections guaranteed for homogenous states. In this era, every “civilized” population needed a state in order to ensure human rights. Protections for human rights existdeedjure at an international level, but legal backing was extensively limited to only include individuals recognized as citiz4en Thi s.s is affirmed in Article 15 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), “Everyone has the right to a nationality. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality” and is the foundation of state-identity and secur5ity A.rendt’s assessment of human rights is upheld in this way, because, in the abstract nakedness of an individual lacking citizenship or nationality, their rights cease to formally exist, leading to a deficit in their protection. These proclamations of rights, as the case with Jews in Europe, would continually present dangers for stateless populations as establishing hegemonic 2 states allowed sovereign governments the power to solely determine, defend, and deny rights to people within their borders. Regardless of the creation of new states, minority populations remained unprotected by human rights declarations and doctrine during both WWI and WWII. Throughout history, Jews, as a stateless population, experienced violent population transfers, pogroms, persecution, and eventual genocide. Moreover, Historian Eric Weitz describes Jews as an “exceptional minority” given their uncommon 6 history as a minority population. They are categorized as exceptional because Jewish populations were not displaced from a region, and on no account had a homogeneous population in one single location. This lack of state-protection, among other factors, led to the genocide of more than six million Jews across Europe in the Holocaust. Following the Holocaust, Jews sought the only seemingly viable option to guarantee their rights, a nation-state. Weitz summarizes the mentality behind the Zionist movement post-WWII, “Only within the Jewish version of that model—a state organized, defined, and run by Jews, a state that would put an end to the supposedly exceptional status of Jews as a minority—it seemed, could the rights and 7 the very lives of Jews be secured.” With this understanding of a state being necessary for upholding minority rights, the Zionist movement to advocated for the creation of Israel. The state of Israel presented itself as a solution for Jewish populations where they were citizens and lived in a homogeneous, Jewish, community. 8 The state of Israel was formally created on May 14, 1948. However, in tandem with the creation of Israel, resident Palestinians were losing their control of the region. Leading up to the formal declaration, countless treaties and commissions including: the Sykes-Picot Agreement, British Mandate 3 for Palestine, and later the Peel Commission paved the way for the creation of Israel. None of the aforementioned treaties and commissions would lead to stability in the new state given the inherent colonial nature of the policies. Regardless of Palestinian national sentiment and Arab government structures, “the British (and later the Americans) were not convinced that the Palestinian population constituted a “nation” based on their notions of statehoo9d.By ignoring Palestine’s national sovereignty, the British in a colonial setting impeded on the human rights of Palestinians. In 1947 to 1948, following the UN partition resolution, Zionist leaders feared that the United Stations and the UN would backtrack on the partition resolution given the question of Palestinians in the formation of Israel, but the UN and the United States would continue to back the Zionist movement in Israel, pushing Palestinian populations to migrate into newly defined Arab territories, arguably leading to the creation of stateless Palestinians. Rural Palestinian populations were transformed from peasant-cultivators to agricultural laborers on Jewish settlements, which Weitz notes was “a transformation akin to that of the Herero and Nama in Namibia” and the bureaucratic measures following the transformation similar to that of the Armenians Genocide after the founding of the Republic of Turke1y0 . The subsequent lack of human rights which resulted from a lack of statehood for the Palestinians is another example of the “abstract nakedness” which stateless populations embody, and the importance statehood and nationality play to guarantee human rights. The loss of nationality protection and human rights assurance for the Palestinians were not lost due to their ethnicity or religion specifically, but more so due to their relationship to the new governance culture in Israel. Looking forward to the post-World War II era, an unprecedented number of refugees occupied Europe. Arendt describes these ‘displaced peoples’ people at the time as “the newest mass phenomenon 4 in contemporary history, and the existence of an every-growing new people composed of stateless persons the most symptomatic group in contemporary poli1ti1 cAslt.”hough it could be argued that displaced peoples or refugees were in no way “the newest mass phenomenon”, the sheer number of refugees, estimated around eight-hundred and fifty thousand people, brought a newfound attention to the issue.12 In conclusion, Arendt’s “abstract nakedness” in which theoretical human rights cannot be realized is evident in stateless populations, including refugees and minorities as well. Stateless populations, in any form, are missing a key component to ensure their human rights, nationality to ensure their implementation. To Arendt, the greatest paradox of contemporary politics is the irony between, “the efforts of well-meaning idealists who stubbornly insist on regarding as “inalienable” those human rights, which, are enjoyed only by citizens of the most prosperous and civilized countries, and the situation of the rightness themselv1e3sI.” n short, this irony exists as a paradox. International bodies have the appetite for international human rights doctrine, but lack the authority. This authority, given state sovereignty in the modern era, relies on individual nations to promote human rights, which presents numerous roadblocks for global implementation. The rights of stateless people continues to be a problem through the 20th century and to the modern day, as human rights doctrine fails to adequately protect refugees and stateless individuals in international doctrine. 5