Call for Papers: Personal Documents and Threats to the Exercise of Fundamental Rights among Roma in the Former Yugoslavia

[anna balint]

Call for Papers: Personal Documents and Threats to the Exercise of
Fundamental Rights among Roma in the Former Yugoslavia

The European Roma Rights Center (ERRC), an international public
interest law organisation which monitors the human rights
situation of Roma and provides legal defence in cases of human rights abuse,
will sponsor a conference on September 6-8, 2002, in Igalo,
Montenegro, on the topic of:

PERSONAL DOCUMENTS AND THREATS TO THE EXERCISE OF
FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS AMONG ROMA IN THE FORMER YUGOSLAVIA

One serious obstacle to the exercise of basic rights by Roma in the
countries of former Yugoslavia is a lack of basic documents, including
but not limited to birth certificates, personal identity documents,
local residence permits and, in the most extreme of cases, a lack of
citizenship. The latter has given rise to the phenomenon of
statelessness among Roma. Particularly in the context of state
succession, statelessness is a problem of dramatic proportions for Roma
living in the areas of former Central European federations, such as
Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. Additionally, Roma reportedly face a
range of other problems in relation to the access to other documents
important for realising basic rights such as housing, health, education,
social benefits, etc. This problem has only been vaguely sketched by
non-governmental organisations and has not been addressed in any
systematic way by authorities in the countries of former Yugoslavia.
The organisers seek papers within the following general topics:
\
- Legal perspectives on the problem of statelessness and state
succession;
- Statelessness in the context of transnational groups;
- Current legislation in relation to citizenship, residence permits,
identity cards and birth certificates;
- Case studies documenting the dimensions of the problem among Roma;
- Good practices in the improvement of the access of Roma to personal
documents;
The focus of the conference will be on statelessness and documents
issues in the former Yugoslavia, and as a highest priority, the ERRC
seeks papers on the issue from countries and localities in this region.
Papers focusing on problems of statelessness and personal documents
issues from other countries and regions, in particular from the Baltics
and former Czechoslovakia, will also be considered.

The ERRC also welcomes comparative studies on any of the topics
given above.
The papers should be written in English. Selected papers from the
conference may be published in the Roma Rights quarterly newsletter, or
in another format. Persons interested in presenting papers at the
conference should submit abstracts of about 500 words and a short CV no
later than July 1, 2002, to Tatjana Peric,  tatjana at errc.org

Due to limited space, the ERRC unfortunately cannot guarantee an
invitation to the conference to all persons submitting an abstract.
Visit the ERRC website at: http://errc.org