Statelessness in Dominican Republic

President of the Central Electoral Board, Rosario Márquez, dictated a lecture on statelesness in the Dominican Republic”

“The Statelessness; Conceptualization and Disconceptualization in the context of the Dominican Republic” Conference dictated by Dr. Roberto Rosario Márquez, President of the Central Electoral Board, on January 20, 2015, at the National Library Pedro Henríquez Ureña

President of the Central Electoral Board, Rosario Márquez, dictated a lecture on statelesness in the Dominican Republic”

“The Statelessness; Conceptualization and Disconceptualization in the context of the Dominican Republic” Conference dictated by Dr. Roberto Rosario Márquez, President of the Central Electoral Board, on January 20, 2015, at the National Library Pedro Henríquez Ureña Ladies and Gentlemen: Prestigious institutions of the civil society have invited us to present a lecture on an issue that has attained a lot of interest in the international scene, particularly, in sectors identified with the defense of human rights and which entails special importance for the present and future of the Dominican Republic. We thank the Interamerican University and the Foundation on Institutionalism and Justice, to the Foundation Justice and Transparency, the Association of Notaries, the Association of Lawyers of the Dominican Republic and the Dominican Ateneo, Inc; the opportunity given to us to present our humble knowledge about the conceptualization of statelessness and its manifestation in the national context.

It is to our satisfaction that the sponsors of this event, have selected Doctor Servio Tulio Castaños Guzmán to comment on it, so that as a critic, with his valuable and significant contributions, he can enrichen, complement, and deepen on the context of what is exposed.

The concept of statelessness got its major relevance in our environment, national and regional, as of September 2013, as a consequence of a decision emanated from the Constitutional Court; this due to the diversity of interpretations originated by sectors with diametrically opposed criteria, as well as local allies which perceived the same as a generator of statelessness.

Nevertheless, the issue is not new. As happens with the majority of concepts, the statelessness emerged to designate an old reality, which in this case subsists since several centuries. The Roman Law left us in particular, the “capitis deminutio” in its medium form, engaging citizens to which the State imposed as punishment the exile, “for being considered contrary to the interests of the town” bringing as a consequence the loss of the “ius civitatis”.

In times when what predominated where governments whose legitimacy depended on force and divine providence, the helplessness of people by the State and the orphanage of a juridical homeland could pass unadverted, provided with the absence of propaganda media, diffusion and liberty of expression –in the actual dimension- characteristics related to the development that

had been reached by humanity. Just as well, quantitatively the cases were reduced, in comparison to other times.

The historic moment where people without nationality demand attention within a group of human beings, was in the XIX century, as a result of the European revolutions and its subsequent migration wave. The swiss, to identify them, called them “heimatlos: Without Homeland”; just as appears in Article 56 of the 1848 Constitution.

The term “statelessness” comes from the greek word mateis-lvos, homeland, with the prefix “a” to juridically designate those who DO NOT have a homeland. The term was used for the first time during the first years of the XX century. Other terms refer to statelessness, using for example “apolidia” and its derivate “apolide” originating in the Italian doctrine, although with little acceptance in other countries.

It was as of World War One when the statelessness became a concern for international organizations and the juridical doctrine assumed it as an important object study. The Austrohungarian, Ottoman and Czarist empires, had other main sociologic characteristics, populations with diverse ethnics, which were desegregated and fought among themselves, when the cohesion of States’ that supported them was broken, producing a harmful migration flow for millions of human beings.

The fratricidal clashes, the ethnical battles, the mistrust among nations and the need for men to conform armies (combat troops) in what was foreseen as a future belic confrontation, which would be the Second World War, created a contradicting situation in several European countries in the 20’s. The States persecuted internal groups, they resisted to their migration and were reluctant to offer them facilities in their territories for immigrants. “The period of interwar, with its political convulsions and the promotion of totalitarian regimes which persecuted part of its population, either for ethnical or political reasons, became sorrowfully in one of the moments in which statelessness got a more significant boom”.

In the book Rike Apatrida, the author Antonio Pau described the conditions of one of the many poets which lived that experience, that historical conjuncture, he narrates it as follows: “There is a decisive moment in the life of Rilke: when the poet, stateless by heart, becomes also, for the society and the law, stateless. Although he lived forever delinked form the things of the world – his things could fit into a suitcase when he changed his residency- and lived in that interior space, the Weltinnenraum, where everything obtained a transcendental dimension, its major tear of the environment is produced in 1919: the war has finished, the austro hungarian to which he belonged has been undone, and he doesn’t know where to go….”

Being a “stateless by heart” saved him from internal bitterness, notwithstanding the own discomforts of someone who lacks the valid document to transit in the frontiers. Nevertheless, he never overcame the weight of war and he expressed it in the following way: “Since a year I move forward, step by step, by a desert of astonishment and pain” and in a poetic dialogue with

the earth, he says: “…Believe me, your springs were not necessary to win: one, only one is too much for the blood”. In regards to that war, from which emanated the first stateless in mass, the poet declaimed: “I am not exalted by the screaming of fierceful fights among nations, because I don’t belong to any group; because the law is not with one or the other.”

These verses describe the human drama of these persons, suddenly thrown to the uncertainty.

Precisely, on December 15, 1922, the Russian government published a decree depriving from nationality the majority of the refugees in other territories, which since 1919 had initiated their exit. The quantity has been calculated in approximately 1,750,000 people.

The doctrine attributes to this fact the initiation of the “statelessness at a big scale”. Similar situations happened with Armenians, persecuted by the turks since 1915, refugees of Syrian ethnical origin; and Italians that escaped from fascism. These last groups were considered stateless by fact, since even though they had not been deprived from their nationality by juridical acts and had their documents; they could not return to their countries, did not receive protection by their authorities and could not register the nationality of their descendants at the place of their domicile.

In that situation, it corresponded to the Society of Nations to assume the solidarity and defense of the stateless. It was the pioneer in the creation of a model to stop the statelessness, objectivizing as a strategy confronting the causes, together with a practical plan to alleviate the situation of its victims. This was achieved in part, establishing political agreements with and among States to give the status to these persons; it was also provided to the denationalized of a document to mobilize, called “Nansen Passport” in honor of the Norwegian Fridjtof Nansen, first High Commissioner to the Society of Nations for the Refugees.

In October 1933, it was celebrated in Geneva the First International Conference about Refugees whose dispositions are a guide for the politics traced at the international level with regards to statelessness. In the event important rights for refugees and stateless persons were approved, to be taken into account by the States were they lived. Among them there is the entrance and exit to the country of domicile, utilizing the “Nansen Passport”, education, social protection, labor, judicial and equal treatment to nationals related to the fiscal contribution. The personal statute was established, according to the laws of its country of origin or domicile.

In 1938, the Society of Nations created the Office for the High Commissioner for Refugees “Nansen”, which later extended to all refugees or stateless persons, even if in the practice, emphasis was made on victims of Nazis and in the Spanish Republicans.

The 14th December 1950, the General Assembly of United Nations constituted the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (ACNUR). It was originally conceived to dissolve after three years but it has extended its existence for 64 years.

Four years after, under the auspices of the UN, was celebrated the Convention regarding the Statute of Statelessness, which entered into force the 6th of june 1960, linking the juridical rights and obligations of stateless with their domicile. The rights of statelessness persons were extended, defined and established.

It could be said that these statutes are the concrete application of the Declaration of Human Rights to this sector, which continued to be extended during the last decades of the past century, first as part of the current independentism, and then as a consequence of the end of the Cold War. Paradox of Life! Two very positive events influence a very negative one.

According to ACNUR, since 1971, more than 200 thousand Biharis consider themselves Pakistanis, refusing the nationality from Bangladesh as a result of their independence from that Nation. In Nepal approximately 100 thousand nationals from Butan continue living in camps, to which laws of citizenship approved by the latter country in 1980 exclude as butans. In 1981, legal dispositions in Zaire left without citizenship thousands of persons; 68,000 were expulsed from Ethiopia in 1998 for being considered nationals from Erythrea, in a time when both nations were in war.

Both countries have resisted to admit them as citizens.

From “some 75,000 persons” expelled from Mauritania in 1989-90 due to fights between ethnias approximately 30 thousand remain in Senegal, deprived from nationality. In the Persic Gulf, around 360 thousand live without being citizens of any country, due to ethnical confrontations and wars of the past century. In a document entitled: The Displacement of the Antique Soviet Region, ACNUR establishes: “As a consequence of the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and Checoslovaquia, millions of persons had to conform a new citizen’s statute. A citizen of old Checocoslovaquia, was he cheq or slovaq? A person born in Belgrad, raised in Sarajevo, married to someone from Zagreb and resident in Lithuania, was he a Yugoslavian, Bosnian, Croatian or Slovenian citizen? The new States which arise from these disintegrations established their own criteria and became “stateless”; in others they could not get the citizenship in the country they were living in.

Once concluded this historic periplus, we can proceed to develop the concept of statelessness.

Let’s see: Some authors differentiate “stateless iure” and “stateless de facto”. The first don’t have a nationality, since they never had it or lost it; the second, have been protected by the country they were born in and of which they were nationals, but their authorities have denied the protection or they themselves have declined it. We can add those whom we could “stateless by ignorance”, referring to persons and their descendants which have suffered marginality and/or don’t know their rights of being educated and documented, transmitting to their children this heavy burden: a painful abandonment, which in a general sense is associated to those who are in poor conditions.

The writer Paul Weis, very inclined to migration issues, distinguishes also, between originary stateless and befallen stateless. The first, applied to those who are deprived from their nationality and the second from those who are born with it. An avenue proposed by international law to neutralize the last category, is offered by the first article of the Convention to Reduce the cases of Statelessness (cited):

“ Any Contracting State will concede its nationality to the person born in its territory who in another way would be stateless…”

The concept and treatment of the international juridical doctrine is explicit and categorical, which allows us to affirm the following: a person or group of persons is stateless by conditions far from their will; by causes emanated from specific conjunctures in their nations or where they were born, or in those cases to which they are linked by Law. The category of statelessness cannot be assumed in a capricious or craving way by individuals or group of persons as many pretend. For example, the migrants, regular or irregular, in the interest of improving the opportunities of welfare or the refugees to guarantee the physical security.

Obviously, from the human point of view, any manifestation of statelessness is a big challenge for the international community and for those who internally in the nation feel identified in an honest way with the preservation of human rights.

Weis compares the stales with res nullius, which in Roman Law would be referred as “things from nobody”. In the book Nationality and Statelessness in International Law the referred author explains that nationality is the main link with the persons and international laws; that the rules of the latter are linked to the diplomatic protection and are based in the principle that nationality is an essential condition for the security of individuals in the world sphere.

Historically, the condition of statelessness has been confused with the one of refugee, displaced internally and migrant. Maybe this subliminal confusion has taken groups the wrong way, by seeing statelessness in persons that are in another migratory category; reason why many authors consider it necessary to dedicate spaces to establishing differences among them even if in the colloquial language the alluded concepts are considered known and related.

The refugee is someone who has well based fears to migrate from his country from which he is a citizen or resist from going in it, arriving to turn down the protection that his State is offering him. He feels that the fear of a persecution due to its racial condition, of his religious convictions, of ethnic links with discriminated and maltreated groups, and/or pertaining to belligerent conglomerations against the established Power. Among these, those who move for one or several reasons in their countries are considered internal displaced.

María Alejandra Salazar Rojas, when conceptualizing immigrants, they say that they cover persons that “migrate from one frontier to the other with finalities related to labor aspects and which abandon their State voluntarily with projection of establishing their residency in the receiving country. “ For this expert in the matter, “(….) the fact that there are human beings that lack nationality is a threat to high values which inspire the International Law as well as to security and to the sovereignty of States which conform the International Community” This issue, was initially studied by a committee of experts of International Law, created by the Assembly of the Society of Nations, in the agreement relating to certain issues linked to conflicts

on nationality legislation, celebrated at The Hague, where it was exposed the ideal and need for strengthening the international community and a compromise to abolish statelessness.

In the marge of this event, it was shown that the main causes of statelessness are historically linked to the fratricidal fights, to belic manifestations-some millenaries- to answers of human conglomerations before impositions; incapacities of governors to understand the heterogeneous essence of thought and the intolerance of those which in determined historic moments have the Power in nations with ethnical diversities; among others.

They have criminalized the following reasons [10]:  Transfer of sovereignty: When a State disappears, and the citizenship is not transferred to another state. Example: Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia in the 90s;  Conflict of Nationality Laws: when it involves children born in a country that only applies the principle of ius sanguinis, offspring of parents whose country limits the ius sanguinis to children born abroad;  Administrative obstacles: it refers to the States that create obstacles and apply excessive tax rates; and  Different types of discrimination (ethnic, gender, and others).

The causes of statelessness linked to armed conflicts, find it difficult to be fought from a representative body of powerful and heterogeneous forces, whose decisions, to be applied, require consensus of the great powers; as in major armed conflicts, often bring into play the economic interests and / or geopolitical of some power interests that dominate against the principles of international law when it is adverse to a country which can veto decisions of the Board UN Security.

Those who impose the logic of the force validate the judgment of Karl Marx in his book A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, which he attributed to "bourgeois economists" of his time, forgetting that "the law of the stronger, only in a different form, still survives even in their "constitutional State." This "prophecy" if we could call it that, is maintained from 1859 until today; 155 years have passed, and mankind is still immersed in a challenge seemingly "eternal" and irresolute.

It can also enlighten us in why instruments of international power are unaware of the principles they praise when it comes to judge the actions of a small country whose laws regarding nationality and treatment vis a vis persons residing in their territory, are explicitly legitimized by legal documents agreed by States. It is as if the concepts of the international agencies on statelessness may be different according to the size of the country where is applied, or to the criteria and interests of the great powers.

To learn about the obligations and duties of the Dominican Republic, made in the community of democratic nations of the world on the issue at hand, it is important to highlight the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, in which important rights for refugees and stateless persons were adopted; and a route was designed to reduce it.

Although as of December 5, 1961 the Dominican Republic signed the aforementioned convention, in our archives there are certifications issued by the Chamber of Deputies of the Dominican Republic, and the Senate, dated 13 and January 14 of the same year, which states that in these institutions, the ratification of the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness does not appear archived or dispatched in the files of those institutions, which implies that from a legislative point of view is not signatory estrictu sensu of the Convention.

For its part, the American Convention on Human Rights, of November 22, 1969, better known as the "Pacto de San JosĂŠ de Costa Rica" Article 20, in the subtitle referring to the right to nationality, provides: " Every person has the right to the nationality of the state in whose territory he was born if he does not have the right to any other nationality. As noted, in the drafting of two international instruments, the obligation of the State to grant nationality to persons born on its territory is conditional, if and only if "is not entitled to any other nationality" [12].

In Chapter VI of our Constitution, it "recognizes and applies the rules of international law, general and American, in so far as its public powers have adopted"; The Constitution it is more clear when it points out that it relates to "ratified international agreements" and also establishes the commitment to "act in the international, regional and national levels in a manner compatible with national interests (...)" [13].

All these facts are crucial to understand the legal grounds of the Dominican State, in each of the steps taken in defense of its sovereignty, against the attempts of international organizations, to impose solutions to internal situations which, as we shall see, if accepted, would threaten the very existence of the Dominican Republic as an independent nation.

We used a portion of our time, to explain the role and content of the institution of statelessness, and their historical evolution; to place ourselves in the context of our reality, to know for sure, the truth and why on the situation created by the Sentence TC / 0168/13 of the Constitutional Court and all acts subsequent thereto; We began emphasizing that our Constitution provides, as an essential function of the State, "(...) the effective protection of the rights of individuals, respect for their dignity, and getting the means to improve their rights in an equally, equitable and progressive manner (...)". It also defines what are the rights and obligations of foreigners in our country. It provides that "everyone has the right to recognition as a person, to a name, the surname of the father and mother and to know the identity of those persons;" and establishes as a right from birth, " the registration, free of charge, in the Civil Registry or in the Foreigners Registry, as well as the right to obtain public documents proving their identity, in accordance with the law "[14]. It also

establishes what are the formalities and limitations of immigrants, legal and illegal, to obtain the nationality. It is clear that its content is broad in terms of rights guarantees.

Based on these principles, the Constitutional Court in its aforementioned judgment, reiterated the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court, in December 2005, and clearly defined for the first time, the subject matter of this meeting, stating in their recitals, the following: 3.1.2. However, none of these international mandates applies to the case that concerns us, or any other event of the same nature. Indeed, the refusal by the Dominican State to grant its nationality to children of foreigners in transit under any circumstances creates a situation of statelessness. In the particular case of the children of Haitian parents in transit, it should be noted that Article 11.2 of the Haitian Constitution of 1983, applicable in the species, explicitly states that Haitians "" They are Haitian origin (...) 2. Any person born abroad Haitian parent; they add ...

3.1.3. Note, therefore, that the Constitution provides for the principle of perpetual subjection to the Haitian nationality in regards to children of Haitian nationals, and this prevents the loss of that nationality once acquired by birth or later with the exception of when becomes impossible if the naturalization in a foreign country. The Haitian citizenship by jus sanguinis has been traditionally recognized in most of the Constitutions of the Republic of Haiti for almost a century, starting with the Constitution of 1843, and then the other constitutions of 1846, 1849, 1867, 1874, 1879, 1888, 1889, 1946, 1957, 1964, 1971, 1983, 1987 and 2011.

In contrary to the Constitutional Court, some Dominican scholars argue (quote) "a person born in our country is not entitled to the Dominican nationality if it has the right to another nationality, a deduction in this work were reluctant to share" [15]. Another opinion says that "we should overcome the mistaken belief that the ius solis, excludes ius sanguinis" [16].

The InterAmerican Commission on Human Rights stated that the Ruling was generating statelessness, and affect, in other words, more than 200 thousand people of Haitian descent, thus initiating an international campaign against the country. These arguments provided by NGOs and by Dominican citizens are essentially based on misinterpretations of international treaties, conventions, and our Constitution.

The local representative of the UNHCR presented in an international event, the case of Mrs. Juliana Deguis as a symbol of more than 200,000 people that according to their criteria, were declared stateless by the Constitutional Court . Under this false information, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, in its latest report, noted that from over 10 million people without nationality in the world, Dominican Republic has 200,000 of Haitian origin.

It is worth recalling the provisions in Article 20 of the American Convention on Human Rights, which recognizes the right of access to nationality to people born in a territory, if is "not entitled to another."

To determine if Mrs. Deguis, and those in a similar situation, have the characteristics that make up the alleged risk of statelessness, let us reproduce the text of Article 11 of the Haitian Constitution: "Possédé the Nationalité haïtienne d'origine, tout individu né ou d'un pere Haitien d'une mère haïtienne qui sont eux-mêmes Haïtiens Nes et n'avanient renoncė ȧ jamais au moment de leur nationalité the maissance". (CONSTITUTUION DU LE 29 MARS 1987 AMENDÉE 9 MAI 2011; Article 11) [17].

In the record of the JCE corresponding to Mrs. Juliana Deguis, we note that her parents are Mr. Blanco Deguis, temporary worker, and Mrs. Marie Pierre, both of Haitian nationality, which was publicly declared by Ms. Deguis.

Our Closing Court in constitutional matters has considered that people in the conditions set in the preceding paragraph, lack the requirements stablished by the Constitution, to automatically access the Dominican nationality, by the mere fact of having been born in our territory, son or daughter of parents in irregular immigration status, and assimilated into this decision to all who are in a condition equal or similar to the mentioned case.

It is good to note that the Haitian government, repeatedly, through its embassy, has argued (quote): "(...) effectively, our Code of Nationality, our Constitution provides that the children of Haitians born outside Haiti are Haitians; parents identified as Haitians that come to claim identity for their children, we give them the documents in question ". [18].

More recently, the current ambassador, Dr. Fritz Cineas in an appearance at Corripio group, August 30, 2007 reaffirmed that, "the children of Haitian parents born in the Dominican Republic are Haitians (...) In any case, if the parents bring the respective documents of the Haitian children born in the Dominican Republic, their birth certificates are issued."

In front of evidence of such magnitude, we allow ourselves to ask: • What is the defenseless argument that has been denounced?

• Are these stateless persons, or just foreigners with the immigration category of "non-resident"?

• Should their status be settled in the Civil Registry, or in the Foreigners Registry?

Assuming the concept in its legal and historical dimensions, we find that the only case that can qualify as stateless on our soil, is Mr. Joseph Rosario, from Holland, arrived in April 1986, and according to media reports, was seen with indifference by the international organizations.

We reproduce the Editorial of the newspaper Listin Diario, dated September 2, 2014, entitled "A Perfect Stateless" [19]:

The true stateless person who exists in the country, living under an uncertain fate for nearly 30 years, is Joseph Rosario. A stateless without mourners. He is not Dominican (and does not want to be), and appears to be Dutch (as he puts it).

It is contradictory the disinterest shown in a clear case of statelessness as it is the situation of Joseph Rosario -- with the insistence of some organisms to label people as outcasts or stateless persons who, daughters of Haitians in an irregular situation in the country, demand to be recognized as Dominicans, although the Haitian Constitution specifically considers them children of that land.

In the interest of gathering information on the alleged 200,000 stateless people that UNHCR reported, we headed to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to inquire what is the number of registered refugees; and we got the following response: from 2005 to January 16, 2015, there has been only 25 refugees; which currently are 16; four of these are of Haitian nationality. [20] As there is a very fine line, and some international agencies confused refugee status to stateless, we wanted to verify the data, but obviously going from 4 to 200 000 people, it is difficult to think that it was a misunderstanding.

As stated in the Haitian legislation, our Constitution as well gives the children of Dominicans born abroad, the right to choose their nationality, stating that Dominicans are: "1) the sons and daughters of Dominican mother or father; (...) 4) those born abroad of a Dominican father or mother, despite having acquired, by place of birth, a nationality different from their parents.

If the criteria for statelessness applied to foreigners in our territory as described above, with universal dimension logic should be that all Dominicans in immigration category of "nonresident" in both Europe and America, and even in the sister Republic of Haiti, should be treated as stateless, and should require the States where they are born, the delivery of the corresponding nationality, as the legal status of Dominican nationality, for that matter, is almost identical to the legal status of Haiti. To only illustrate, let us refer to the cases of two (2) descendants of Dominicans living abroad‌ First case: In Spain, a Dominican man and Dominican woman applied for Spanish citizenship for a child, arguing that they were legally residing in the country. We extract the following answer of the referred ruling: As to the merits, there is no doubt that the children should not be granted the Spanish Nationality because to the knowledge acquired by the Directing Center regarding the Dominican Constitution, the children born to Dominican parents are Dominican iure sanguinis unless they have acquired a distinct nationality jure soli (cfr. Art.11 No 3 of the Constitution of the Dominican Republic). Therefore, given the subsidiary nature of the attribution iure soli of the Spanish nationality and the preference of the Spanish lawmaker of the jus sanguinis over iure soli, we must conclude that the children are Dominican and the wording of the Civil Code does not apply, because a situation of

statelessness has not originated that would justify the attribution of the Spanish nationality [21]

Second case: Mr. Felix García, minister counselor at the Dominican Embassy in Colombia, forwarded the situation that we detail below, so we could assist in the process of documentations of the daughter of the lady in question. We ascertained the following: The daughter of Mrs. Rafaela Casanovas, Laura Casanovas Sánchez, was born in Colombia on July 26th, 2013. The National Civil Registry issued a birth certificate with an UPIN (Unique Personal Identity Number) without attributing the Colombian nationality, notwithstanding that since April 2009 Mrs. Casanovas has a work permit and a Colombian “foreigner identity card”. The authorities of that country informed her that her daughter has no claim to a Colombian passport given that the nationality that corresponds to her is the Dominican one because both parents are Dominican.

We can observer that all States apply the universal principle contained in the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness of 1961 and the American Convention on Human Rights in this region.

It does not occur to anybody to accuse any other country of using policies of discrimination and exclusion on the basis of race, color and/or nationality, in situations like the ones described above, from which we can infer that there is a particular status in the case of the Dominican State that obey more to geopolitical and economic interests far from our shores.

In the document entitled “Nationality and Statelessness: Manual for Parliamentarians” [22], the preface is signed by Antonio Gutierrez, High Commissioner of the UNHCR and Anders B. Johnssons, Secretary General of Interparliamentary Union, the highest ranking officers of these entities, and they express the following considerations: “the 195 Convention defines a stateless person as one that is not recognised as a national by any State, in accordance to their national legislation" (Article 1). This is a purely legal definition. It does not refer to the quality of the nationality nor the way it is attributed or how to access it. The definition refers simply to a legal operation by which the laws related to nationality of one State define ex lege, or automatically who has nationality.

Given this definition, in order for someone to be considered stateless, there needs to be evidence of a denial: that he or she does not posses any legal nexus to any relevant country.

In order to prove statelessness, States would need to review the legislation on nationality of those States that with which the individual has had previous linkages (birth, former effective=habitual residence,the State or States of which the parents or grandparents were nationals of), consult with those States and, if necessary, request proof. States should also

request full cooperation from the interested individuals in order to provide all the data and relevant information.

The documentation provided by a responsible government authority certifying that the individual involved is not a national, is usually trustworthy evidence of statelessness, but this information is not always available. The corresponding authority in the country of origin or prior residence can deny the issuance of documents that establish that individuals are not nationals or they could simply not answer requests for information. Some government authorities may consider that they do not have a responsibility to indicate which persons do not posses a nexus to that country.

Hence it is to be assumed that if a State denies confirming that an individual is not one of its nationals, the denial in itself constitutes a means of evidence, considering that States usually offer diplomatic protection to its citizens.

In relation to the subject of statelessness of large populations in disaffected and undocumented conditions, in the website of the Organization of American States (OAS) you can find information on the Project for Modernisation and Integration of the Haitian Civil Registry (PUICA), and there it indicates that “the PUICA concluded the current phase of activities on June 30th, 2012 and issued national identification cards to 5,054,214 persons”, the original goal being 10 million registered. Official statistics of the World Bank indicate that the population of Haiti is approximately 10.5 million inhabitants. If the data is correct it means that over 50 percent of the population is without identification. This means that millions of people in their own territory are de facto stateless, living totally marginalized and in conditions of vulnerability.

In the Dominican Republic you cannot talk about the issue of migration, refugees or statelessness without referring to our neighbors and main sender of migrants, this notwithstanding the prejudices associated to the bi-national relations. In order to have an idea of the causal elements of the migratory phenomenon that affects us we need to remember the views of one of the most respected intellectuals in Haitian culture Jean Price-Mars in his work entitled The Republic of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, Volume 2, where he comments “clandestine immigration is the most comfortable mode of arriving to this results (...) they belong to the countless chronically unemployed or undefined, product of a triple phenomenon, biological, economic and ecological”, he adds that “we have voluntarily restricted the surface of the territory (...) use has damaged systematically a considerable number of these mountain chains that have aided the gradual erosion of many parts of the territory that contrast with the accelerated rhythm with which the population is growing as if its progressed in direct proportion to the scarcity of the means for survival (...) so that the triple postulates presented above anticipate an inevitable consequence: the escape of men towards areas where life is less hard, even though not easier”.

This critical thinking seeks to raise awareness on the causes of the problem in order to find solutions within their own territory, but it has been interpreted inversely by an important part of the Haitian dominant class, by important international agencies and reproduced openly in the newspaper Le Nouvellist that without blushing editorialised what follows:

“(…) Here, the future is clogged. We have been migrating for a century. This is not going to stop.

Elsewhere is better and we know it. So what do you need to do? In times when the Diaspora dreams of getting involved in politics, is the main engine of the national economy, and has dual citizenship of fact or law, is it not it time to ask the question of how to help more and more Haitians to leave the country? (…)” “(…) Yet neither the Minister of Haitians Living Abroad nor any organized civil society group have yet put on the table the need to organize, streamline, and encourage annually 50, 100 or 200,000 Haitians to leave the territory in the coming years. Mass departure is necessary to maintain the Haitian economy that survives solely on remittances (…)” “(...) In a nutshell, Haiti does not have the means to develop in the current conditions while the population increases and increases. Take the bull by the horns. Even if in a week or five years we discover immeasurable natural resources on earth, during the time it takes to exploit it for the benefit of the country, you need to have an alternative. Go elsewhere, is the course chosen by our migrant volunteers since a century, it is the only alternative available to the country at the moment. We have to think about it rationally. This is called a migration policy. "[24] More recently the Hoy newspaper referenced an interview made by the director of Telenoticias, Roberto Cavada, of Canal 11, to the recently designated Prime Minister of Haiti, Mr. Evans Paul, who said: “I am here to work so Haiti stops taking its problems to the Dominican Republic. My interest is to the things that have been done but better”, he further added, “I am not of the ones that believe that Haiti has to export its problems to the Dominicans”.

Notwithstanding that reality and of being a country where 34 per cent of its population lives in poverty and extreme poverty, and to the strength of the legal argumentation of the Dominican State. In a generous act of solidarity in searching for a solution to the problem that has affected our country for the last 100 years, various State Powers and government organs with the support of civil society have produced two instruments that are complementary to the Ruling, these are: a) the National Regularization Plan and b) Law Number 169-14.

These instruments allow us to effectively affirm that the Dominican Republic is the only country that in the least amount of time and with the highest level of social cohesion is completing the most profound, integral, and inclusive immigration reform in all of the Americas in the last decade.

The main characteristics of the instruments are: -

It is totally free of charge for the beneficiaries.

De facto suspension of all deportations.

Ascription of the nationality to every person subscribed irregularly in the Civil Registry that was born within national territory between 1929 and 2007.

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The creation of a registry of births occurred in the country, but not subscribed in the Civil Registry, in order for the persons subscribed to be ascribed a migratory category and have the option to start the naturalization in a period of two years; - The regularization of all foreigners that live in the country and the designation of a migratory category in accordance to their situation.

- The setting up of offices for immigrants to have access to these programs all over the country.

This pack of measures is being implemented with absolute adherence and respect to the dignity of people. Nonetheless the international negative campaign has not yielded, it uses the concept of statelessness as an excuse to force out country to assume a overflowing migration of Haitian nationals without giving importance to the economic, social, cultural and political consequences.

In closing my intervention, we believe convenient to note that statelessness cannot be applied to Haitian and Dominican nationals because both countries have a constitutional structure that guarantees forever the transmission of nationality rights to their descendants in whichever country they are born.

For the first time in history, the Dominican State has consolidated homogenous criteria that are in tune with the Constitution, on this basis there are an ensemble of measures in process of implementation that guarantee the rights of people, as indicated in the international conventions and in national legislation, either domestic of foreign. These reforms are the product of Ruling TC/0168/13, and with them we have taken an important step in the fight to reduce marginality and social exclusion; there are more opportunities for those who have chosen our country as a place to settle for different reasons, and hence the false perception of the risk of statelessness has been neutralized.

We need to feel proud that many people of other nationalities have chosen our country to make their dreams come true. This speaks highly of our hospitality, solidarity and generosity, and of the advances and economic, social and developmental perspectives that we have. But if we do not manage this situation in accordance with our current legal provisions, the dreams of the immigrants and our own run the risk that all the inhabitants of the eastern part of the island wake up in a bitter nightmare.

Thank you very much