Statement of Professor John Packer* to the 11th UN Forum on Minority Issues 29 November 2018 Item 2: Root causes and consequences of statelessness affecting minorities: preventing statelessness through a human rights approach Madam Chairperson, Special Rapporteur, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, It has been my honour to moderate the panel for this substantive session. In my own independent capacity, I take the liberty to observe the following. The session featured a wide variety and range of statements of concern and of situations, often only tangentially or not connected with the specific Agenda Item. Evidently, representatives of minorities wish to voice their concerns for which this Forum offers a rare and very limited opportunity. I appreciate the need and effort made to share the concerns. With regard to the Agenda Item itself, a number of speakers raised recurrent issues such as: the problem of absence or limited access to documentation establishing status; the problem of failures of or obstacles to registrations of births; problems of substantive requirements – sometimes discriminatory – for naturalization to fulfill the right to a nationality; the absence of recognition of certain communities; the absence of data; lack of availability of information, including laws, in minority languages; the problems of intolerance, hate speech and incitement; and failures or frustrations relating to inclusion in public life, including political life, in general and with regard particularly to self-determination claims. The panelists identified a number of elements relating to the causes of statelessness, including disjunctures of and transitions in political status of territories or groups – often featuring armed conflicts – which generate statelessness. In a number of situations, disputes over ownership of or access to land and other property is closely connected to the creation of statelessness. Often, the victims manifest the effects of intersectional and compound discrimination and inequality. In response to these and other identified problems, as a general principle it was urged to include the affected persons – the stateless or those at risk of becoming stateless – by means of their effective participation in processes of policy- and decision-making. Other recommendations from the first session included the following: that States make specific commitments to address existing cases; that States seek technical assistance from relevant UN offices to improve their policies, laws and practices; that investment be made into building the