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The kurds: a stateless people
Stateless peoples or nations are human communities which, despite fulfilling the characteristics of culture, history or identity normally associated with a people, don’t have a recognised state.
Peoples’ right to free determination is mentioned in different international instruments, such as the United Nations Charter (1945) and other UN treaties and resolutions. Specifically, both the International Covenant on Political and Civil Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) establish that “All peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.” These Covenants furthermore state that: “The States Parties to the present Covenant, including those having responsibility for the administration of Non-Self-Governing and Trust Territories, shall promote the realization of the right of self-determination, and shall respect that right, in conformity with the provisions of the Charter of the United Nations.”
A people therefore has the right to freely decide its form of government, pursue its economic, social and cultural development and structure, with no outside interference and based on the principle of equality. However, reality demonstrates that the ability to exercise this right is often denied.
One illustration of the impossibility to exercise its right to self-determination is the Kurdish people, presently considered to be the largest of its kind on numbering around 25 million.
If we cast our eyes back over history, the Kurds, who inhabited ancient Kurdistan, is one of the oldest peoples on Earth. This nation has been struggling since the late 19th century to maintain its cultural and political idiosyncrasy and to obtain self-determination. Following World War I, under the Treaty of Sevres, the Kurdish people earned recognition as an independent Kurdish state in the north of Kurdistan. This international agreement was never ratified. In 1923, the Treaty of Lausanne was approved, whereby the Kurdish territory was divided between Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria, meaning that the majority of the Kurdish population is forced to live under the jurisdiction of one or another of these countries.
The case of the Kurdish people is perhaps the best known on the international arena. This said, all five continents have larger or smaller communities which demand their rights as a people. This is the case of Western Sahara, Kashmir, Palestine or Tibet, to name but a few examples of those who are denied the possibility of enjoying a certain degree of self-government, an own territory and of exercising their right to free determination.
This persecution and rejection isn’t only reflected in the politics of the government of the country in which these stateless peoples reside, but also in the inhabitants of the “official” states, who see a threat in coexisting with a collective that they consider foreign. Whether because of their language, their customs, their religion, their culture or even their physical traits, people from stateless nations are forced to bear an economic and social discrimination carrying negative consequences in their everyday lives: margination, problems in finding or keeping work, widespread violation of their rights, etc.
As a result of this situation, thousands of human beings belonging to these most vulnerable minorities are led to request the status of political refugees in other countries. But many states deny them the right to asylum for fear of political and economic reprisals from other nations which don’t recognise the rights of these people as a nation.