Excerpt: Framework of Socio-Economic Rights for Non-Nationals
The following post is an excerpt from the upcoming report ‘Securing Citizenship’ on India’s legal obligations towards precarious citizens and stateless persons authored by the Centre for Public Interest Law, JGLS and Faculty of Law, Université Catholique de Lille. The Report reviews and comments on the key contemporary legal issues pertaining to citizenship and statelessness in India. Divided into three chapters – Citizenship Status, Detention and Socio-Economic Rights – the Report presents recommendations to strengthen the existing legal framework. This excerpt is the second in a three-part series of excerpts from the report. The previous excerpt on legal recognition of the status of statelessness can be found here. The next excerpt will cover ‘Rights of Child Detainees’. The entire Report will be published in the final week of November, and the schedule of events can be found here.
Socio-Economic Frameworks
B.1 International law obligations
As previously mentioned, this report acknowledges the fact that Indian citizens themselves are routinely deprived of these rights in practice. However, despite this unfortunate reality, a State has a legal and moral duty to provide access to fundamental entitlements to all individuals in its territory, regardless of their nationality. These fundamental entitlements refer to social and economic protection which includes access to healthcare, the right to housing and sanitation, the right to education and the right to work and employment, among others.
In international law, Article 25 of the UDHR covers a vast range of rights, including access to adequate water, food, clothing, housing, medical care and other social protections. This ‘minimum threshold’ for a standard of living is applicable to all persons and is certainly not conditional on citizenship. Based on the principles of equality and non-discrimination, the rights espoused in Article 25 of the UDHR provide the core grounding to the more specific articulations of socio-economic rights in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (‘ICESCR’). The vast majority of human rights are applicable to everyone, regardless of nationality or immigration status (including stateless persons) as confirmed by General Comment No. 15 and 31. Specifically, in relation to socio-economic rights, the Committee for Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (‘CESCR’) in 2009 clarified the interpretation and applicability of ICESCR, stating that the Covenant rights apply to ‘everyone including non-nationals, such as refugees, asylum-seekers, stateless persons, migrant workers and victims of international trafficking, regardless of legal status and documentation’. This unequivocally clarifies that socio-economic rights recognised in international law are positively enforceable or applicable to all persons, including non-citizens, stateless persons and precarious citizens, regardless of their citizenship status.
Article 25 of the UDHR Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.
The 1954 Convention is the sole treaty framework that directly prescribes standards of treatment of stateless persons to be implemented by states. While India is not yet a signatory to this pertinent treaty, many of its provisions are now either customary international law, or at the very least offer important approaches relating to the protection of stateless persons that can serve as a useful model, as stated in the UNHCR Statelessness Handbook. The 1954 Convention provides a broad framework of civil, economic, social and cultural rights that must be granted to stateless persons. The broad categories include welfare rights to rationing, housing, public education, public relief, labour legislation, social security, access to identity documentation and gainful employment (wage earning, self-employment, access to liberal professions), among others.
B.2 Lessons from protection frameworks for non-nationals
India does not have a comprehensive policy governing refugees that have fled to India or for stateless persons and their protections. The Indian government’s approach towards different precarious citizens of other nationalities and stateless persons has been varied. The Tibetan community and those refugees recognised by (and registered with) the UNHCR serve as two distinct examples. Though the legal, social and political positions of these two communities are clearly distinguishable, their access to socio-economic rights present a blueprint of the rights that could and should be made available to stateless persons. Much like stateless persons, refugees find themselves at the risk of sliding further on the slippery slope of citizenship. Therefore, it is appropriate to refer to the Indian refugee framework and approaches to inform our recommendations for stateless persons and precarious citizens. The nexus between the two frameworks can also be observed from the fact that the 1954 Convention and the 1951 Refugee Convention have a shared drafting history where the former is largely modelled on the provisions of the latter.
An important caveat, however, is that the status of the Tibetan community is not a completely transposable model to stateless individuals, as Tibetans are specifically recognised and protected by the Indian Government. Depending on when they arrived in India (after the Dalai Lama’s ‘flight into exile’ in 1959) they possess stateless identity certificates, are considered ‘temporary refugees in India’, or fall into the category of ‘Long Term Stay’. On the other hand, the refugees who are recognised and registered by the UNHCR, such as the Afghans, Somalians and certain Burmese groups, are ‘entitled to an assessment for a Refugee Certificate; a visa if granted a certificate, though often shorter-term; and the possibility of naturalisation, but this depends on irregular and opaque criteria’. Their access to socio-economic rights, therefore, is dependent on and varies according to their specific contexts and the kind of documentation they have. The UNHCR works with a number of implementing partners, such as Don Bosco and the Development and Justice Initiative (‘DAJI’) to facilitate support and access to these rights. Don Bosco particularly focuses on assisting vulnerable refugee children. It provides them with support in the form of ‘rescue operations, short-stay homes, home reparation, institutional rehabilitation, child protection mechanisms, advocacy, education skill trainings, accompaniment and foster care’. Nonetheless, despite the variations in the terminology and categorisation of the legal status of precarious citizens in India, the refugee framework illustrates the crucial socio-economic rights that have been made available to non-citizen communities, as outlined below.
RightMeasures by Government of India/UNHCR for TibetansMeasures by Government of India for Rohingya refugees HealthcareAccess to facilities in settlement colonies, administered by the Central Tibetal Administration.Access to Indian hospitals but ineligible for state healthcare subsidies available to citizens.In principle, they have equal access to Primary Health Centres. However, reports persist of Rohingyas being denied treatment due to lack of Indian documentation. Prescription medicines are expensive and inaccessible.Limited coverage by Anganwadis for maternal, neonatal, and early childhood care.Food and Nutrition Access to PDS rations.Dependent upon rations supplied by UNHCR/local NGOs.Limited access to Anganwadis in certain states for infant nutritional requirements. Shelter, Housing, SanitationTibetan refugee settlements, established in the 1960s on Government land and administered through officers appointed by the Tibetan Government-in-Exile. Lease agreements signed with the Central Tibetan Relief Committee.The majority live in clusters of shanties, with shared toilets and water facilities. Wastewater from toilets flows out into open drains; some are forced to manually collect and dispose of faeces. Access to clean drinking water remains erratic, dependent upon sympathetic local residents. EducationTibetan secondary and high schools.Access to higher education in Indian colleges and universities. Eligible for Government scholarships.Children under age 14 technically have access to primary schools under the RTE Act, but implementation is erratic – admissions denied due to lack of documentation.When allowed to attend local schools, they are barred from the midday meal scheme. EmploymentNon-interference with employment. Seasonal sweater selling, agriculture, and small enterprises are their primary sources of income.Eligible for trade licenses in nursing, teaching, chartered accountancy, medicine, and engineering as per Tibetan Rehabilitation Policy, 2014.Not eligible for government jobs.Common sources of livelihood are rag-picking, construction work, sanitation work, and various kinds of unskilled labour in the informal sector. This work is precarious and makes for a very unstable source of income.