LU EMN NCP Conference 'Tackling Statelessness: Exchange of Experiences and Good Practices'

The Luxembourg Contact Point of the European Migration Network (LU EMN NCP) would like to draw your attention to its upcoming Conference on Statelessness, which will be held at the University of Luxembourg on Campus Kirchberg on 15 April 2016.

The 1954 Convention on the status of stateless persons defines a stateless person as ‘a person who is not considered a national by any State under the operation of its law’. At least 10 million people are stateless worldwide, an issue that is also relevant in Europe as 600.000 persons are concerned. Statelessness can have many different causes: ethnic discrimination, State succession but also irregular migration to name but a few.

Taking into account the rising prominence of the issue, the Council of the European Union, when adopting its conclusions on Statelessness on 4 December 2015, invited the European Commission to foster the exchange of good practices among Member States.

This Conference consists a step in that direction by considering the issue on multiple levels, European, international and national, and by inviting representatives from different backgrounds to join the discussion.

Luxembourg’s Minister of Family and Integration Corinne Cahen will open the Conference which will start with the panel ‘Statelessness in the EU’, followed by ‘Statelessness from an International Perspective’ and finally the panel dealing with ‘Statelessness in Luxembourg’.

The opening panel 'Statelessness in the EU' will consider the EU's role in the topic and give a comparative overview of different national approaches in dealing with Statelessness, while the panel 'Statelessness from an International Perspective' will explore the contribution of Human Rights Law in preventing Statelessness and present an overview of the situation worldwide. Finally, the concluding panel 'Statelessness in Luxembourg' will present the Grand-Duchy's experience in this issue and the role of the Luxembourgish Presidency of the EU Council in 2015.

Interpretation services will be provided in English and French.