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Alexander Lukashenko has banned Belarusians who have left from obtaining foreign passports abroad. Is it possible to protect people who have effectively lost their citizenship?

Writer Vladimir Nabokov, artist Marc Chagall, ballerina Anna Pavlova, musicians Sergei Rachmaninoff and Igor Stravinsky. All these outstanding representatives of the first wave of emigration were holders of Nansen passports, named after the polar explorer and public figure Fridtjof Nansen who proposed them.

The experience of 100 years ago can be useful today. Many who left risk becoming unknown. Since September 7, Alexander Lukashenko has banned diplomatic missions from issuing documents to citizens of Belarus. They cannot return home for a new passport: after the protests of 2020, they will face criminal prosecution there. The inability to obtain a new passport to replace an expired one effectively makes a person stateless.

The Russian authorities have a different attitude towards those who have left: to try to bring them back (Finance Minister Anton Siluanov called this his KPI). The idea of ​​taxing emigrants' income at 30% has been replaced by allowing them to pay the standard 13% personal income tax. Moreover, a proposal is currently being discussed to allow Russians abroad to obtain even internal passports at consulates.

But nothing prevents Russia from doing as Belarus did. The "hawks" have the desire. State Duma Speaker Volodin proposed depriving Russians of property who, while abroad, "discredit the Russian army." Passports can also be taken away.

To do harm to emigrants.

Lukashenko was not the first to try to ruin the lives of political emigrants. Egyptian dictator Abdul Fattah al-Sisi is acting in a similar way. In Egypt, the secret services are denying new passports to opponents of the regime. Nicaragua is also trying to deprive emigrants of passports. All this increases the burden on countries bordering dictatorships. Most Belarusians are accepted by Poland and Lithuania, Egyptians by Turkey, and Nicaraguans flee to Costa Rica. Nicaraguans whose passports were taken away by the authorities before leaving have to wait years in Costa Rica to receive refugee status.

The Belarusian dictator went further than others. Lukashenko's decree prohibited Belarusians who left not only from remotely obtaining passports, but also from selling apartments and cars: transactions can only be completed in person or on the basis of powers of attorney issued in Belarus. This is important. Many emigrants, assuming that they will not be able to return for a long time, sell assets in their homeland. Therefore, the share of real estate sold by power of attorney has sharply increased in both Belarus and Russia. Now this option is closed for Belarusians. Belarusian diplomatic missions will stop issuing powers of attorney, and previously issued ones will be cancelled. Citizens whose passports have expired will be fined, wherever they are. Apostilles, certificates from civil registry offices, duplicate diplomas, etc. will now also be issued only with powers of attorney obtained within the country.

Nansen passports became the first document that provided international protection and legal status for people left without a state
This is not the only way to spoil the blood of emigrants. A year ago, the Belarusian government listed those who work and study abroad as "parasites", increasing their utility bills. Starting this summer, Belarus may deprive those convicted of extremist activity and those who have entered military service or the police of another state of their citizenship.

Since 2020, about a million citizens have left Belarus. Taking into account those who left earlier, according to official data, about 1.5 million Belarusians are abroad. Since the start of the war, 820,000-920,000 people have left Russia.

Times have changed since the first wave of emigration: a passport is needed not only for travel. Now, without it, you can’t get a job, open a bank account, buy a ticket or a SIM card. What options do those who have effectively been left stateless have, and what can be done to restore their status?

Dreams. Passport of the New Belarus or “good Russian”.

Unlike Russians, citizens of Belarus have something like a government in exile (the United Transitional Cabinet - UTC). In early August, the office of the elected president Svetlana Tikhanovskaya announced plans to issue a passport of the New Belarus. The UTC wants the new passport to be recognized by EU members, but so far the chances of this project succeeding are slim. Usually, passports are issued by states whose distinctive feature is the presence of controlled territory. There are exceptions, but they are exotic.

Territory is not the main thing.

There are also precedents of passports being issued by governments in exile. Thus, the USA and many European countries did not recognize the annexation of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia by the Soviet Union. Their diplomatic missions in the USA operated until the republics gained independence half a century later, and all this time they continued to issue passports (for example, here is a Latvian passport from 1948), which were recognized by countries that did not agree with the Soviet occupation of the Baltic countries.

In order for the passports of New Belarus to become a reality, Tikhanovskaya's office will have to solve a bunch of problems: persuade European countries to issue a special country code, solve the problem of collecting and storing personal data. Finally, Belarus can make obtaining a passport of New Belarus a criminal offense.

Russians do not see such a prospect either. In May 2022, Garry Kasparov and Dmitry Gudkov proposed issuing special passports to Russians abroad, but the matter was limited to heated debates and the meme "passport of a good Russian".

Palliative care. Foreigner's passport and Geneva passport.

A more realistic option is foreigner's passports. They are issued by many EU countries, the USA, Australia, Japan and Canada to those who cannot return to their country. This is a temporary replacement for a passport. Usually, the condition for its issuance is the presence of a residence permit.

Russians can also receive foreigner's passports, for example, if there are no more blank sheets for marks, or the surname or gender has changed. In this case, you will have to justify why the document cannot be obtained in your country (or its consulate) and present your old passport.

These documents may differ depending on the country. Poland issues a foreigner's travel document, Lithuania and Estonia - foreigner's passports. This year, Poland issues travel documents to Belarusians under a simplified procedure (apparently, its validity will now be extended). A slightly more complicated procedure is in effect in Lithuania, which has already announced that it will continue to issue foreigner's passports to Belarusians who cannot return to their homeland.

Nansen passports gave people the opportunity to live in any country that recognizes this document. Not all countries will support this now

About one hundred and fifty countries recognize and issue Geneva, or "blue" passports. To obtain them, you need refugee status: you need to prove that a person can become a victim of persecution in their homeland. Refugee status can only be obtained in the territory of the first safe country that a person crosses. Unlike the temporary protection status, which the EU activated for Ukrainians after the war, refugee status is associated with a number of restrictions. A refugee cannot work for six months after receiving the status, and during the period of receiving it, they cannot leave the borders of the host country. Refugees cannot freely choose their place of residence and must be in refugee detention centers.

Foreign passports do not grant new citizenship, but only temporarily replace an expired passport. But with it, you can travel around the Schengen area and obtain visas for other countries. A foreign passport issued, for example, in Lithuania, will be recognized by all countries that recognize Lithuanian passports. You can open a bank account and get a job with them. But they do not even give the right to stay in the country that issued them, if, for example, the residence permit has expired. For most people, such passports are a temporary and palliative solution until they receive citizenship of another country. If they manage to get it at all.

An old recipe. Nansen Passports.

Since foreign passports are a palliative, and obtaining refugee status has become much more difficult in recent decades, the most realistic option seems to be to repeat the method from a century ago. It was proposed by the famous polar explorer and public figure, Norwegian Fridtjof Nansen (in 1938, the Nansen Office for Refugees received the Nobel Peace Prize), and the passports were called Nansen passports.

They were issued by the League of Nations, the predecessor of the UN in 1922-1938. The reason for their appearance was the decision of the Soviet government (1921)

to deprive 800 thousand compatriots who found themselves abroad of citizenship. Most of them were not only without status, but also without means of subsistence, so Nansen dealt not only with passports, but also with humanitarian and social assistance to Russian refugees. At first, he thought that many Russians would return to their homeland, but one group sent from Bulgaria to their homeland was shot by the Bolsheviks, and another was not allowed into the country.

Nansen passports proved to be a salvation not only for Russian emigrants. They were received by Armenian refugees fleeing the genocide in the Ottoman Empire, Assyrian, Turkish and Bulgarian refugees - in total, about 450 thousand such passports were issued. They were also issued to Jews fleeing Nazi Germany.

In 1926, Nansen passports were recognized by more than 20 countries, and in 1942 - already 52.

For most people, foreign passports are a temporary and palliative solution until they receive citizenship of another country.

Like modern foreign passports, Nansen passports were travel documents and provided protection from deportation. But that was all that was required of them: 100 years ago, Europe did not yet have the current system of social, medical and pension security that citizens join, and it was much easier to obtain the right to live in a particular country than it is now. Nansen passports were usually issued for a year, with the right to extend, and allowed to live and work in all European countries that recognized them.

Nansen Passesports became, in fact, the first document that provided international protection and legal status for stateless persons - people left without a state. Over time, there were more and more of such people. After World War II, the rights that the Nansen passport provided were incorporated into the International Convention on Refugees. But the flow of refugees increased, and over time, the task of obtaining this status became incredibly complicated. In 1921, the League of Nations recognized all Russians who left their country and did not acquire another citizenship as refugees. Now this is a long and bureaucratic procedure, in which much depends on the country of origin. For example, in 2015, almost all Syrians who applied for it received this status, and only 29% of people from Mali.

Therefore, many believe that the most reasonable solution to the problem is the resumption of issuing Nansen passports, updated to take into account modern realities. They would help people leaving their countries because of wars and dictatorships to exist abroad without accepting citizenship of other countries.

What it could be like.

In June, the UN Refugee Commission considered what Nansen passports should look like in the 21st century (consultations are currently underway). It is assumed that they will be biometric, and countries that join the initiative will protect passport holders from forced return to their homeland and facilitate their return

to countries where they have received asylum. These passports will probably have a longer validity period than current foreign passports, and they will become a legitimate identity document for financial institutions.

In this form, the new Nansen passports, if they are implemented, will not differ much from current foreign passports. Their main advantages are a longer validity period and the fact that they will be issued by the UN - their holders will be less dependent on the goodwill of specific countries. This may be important for those who left Russia. For example, in 2022-2023, Poland and Lithuania willingly issued foreign passports to Ukrainians and Belarusians, but due to the war, it was extremely difficult for Russians to obtain such documents, which imply a residence permit.

The new Nansen passports could become a universal solution designed to help not only Russians and Belarusians, but also all refugees - according to the UN and OECD, there were almost 26 million of them in 2021. A similar approach, but with broader rights, is proposed to be applied to the inhabitants of the islands that may go under water during global warming: to give them the right to choose a new state for themselves.

Here is the main fork in the road. Nansen passports gave people the opportunity to live in any country that recognizes this document. Not all countries will support this now, this is perhaps the main difficulty in reviving Nansen passports. The host countries are not ready to give refugees the right to freely choose a new place of residence. Thus, during the migration crisis of 2015-2016, the countries of Central and Eastern Europe actively resisted the attempts of Brussels and Germany to increase the number of refugees they accept. Only the political crisis in Belarus and Russia's war against Ukraine changed the position of these countries towards migration. They agreed to accept "related" Belarusians and Ukrainians. Neither Russians nor refugees from other countries can count on such an attitude.

It is unlikely that the new Nansen passports will give the right to live in any country, even in the Schengen zone. Then they will be a slightly improved version of the current foreign passports. But even in this form, the new passports will allow people who have lost their citizenship to look to the future with more confidence.

Author-Boris Grozovsky (observer, author of the EventsAndTexts Telegram channel) 11.09.2023

New Nansen passports could protect those left stateless.

"We can sit back and talk about peace and humanism, but they will remain empty words unless we are prepared to act when suffering and need confront us." Fridtjof Nansen