Statelessness in Lebanon: The long road to citizenship

Statelessness remains one of Lebanon’s least understood yet most persistent human rights challenges. Thousands of people living in Lebanon lack legal nationality, leaving them without access to many rights and protections granted by recognized citizens.

In an interview with The Beiruter, Dr. Elias Dahrouge, a lecturer, researcher, and consultant specializing in international relations and public policy, explained that understanding statelessness requires looking beyond the numbers. Building, among others, on Siren Associates’ groundbreaking series of studies on statelessness in Lebanon, to which he previously contributed, he argued that Lebanon’s statelessness crisis is the product of historical developments, legal gaps, and years of policy decisions that shaped the country’s current reality.

Statelessness as a global rather than exclusively Lebanese issue

According to Dr. Dahrouge, statelessness should first be understood as a global phenomenon rather than a problem confined to Lebanon or the Middle East. Millions of people worldwide remain without nationality despite international efforts to reduce and eventually eradicate statelessness.

He noted that statelessness is often misunderstood because the term may suggest that a person is without a state, when it is more accurately understood as being “citizenshipless”: people may live within and have long-standing ties to a state without being recognized as its citizens. Legally, a stateless person is someone who is not considered a national by any state under the operation of its law.

This distinction is important because nationality represents the legal bond between an individual and a state. Without it, individuals effectively become invisible in legal and administrative systems, limiting their ability to access fundamental rights.

Citizenship as a political instrument

Placing the issue within a political science framework, Dr. Dahrouge argued that statelessness is closely linked to the emergence of the modern nation-state following the Westphalian system, under which states acquired authority to determine who qualifies as citizens.

He described citizenship as something governments can in some cases “weaponize” through three principal mechanisms.

The first is inclusion, whereby states extend citizenship to selected populations for political or strategic reasons, as Russia did when it granted citizenship to people in Crimea.

The second is exclusion, whereby certain groups are denied citizenship despite long-standing residence or legitimate claims to nationality. “Some Baltic states did this after the collapse of the Soviet Union, when they refused to grant citizenship to ethnic Russians who had been living there all their lives,” he noted.

The third is revocation, where governments withdraw nationality from individuals or communities, as Kuwait and other countries have recently done.

According to Dr. Dahrouge, Lebanon’s experience primarily falls within the second category: exclusion from citizenship. While other factors contribute, historical exclusion remains a foundational cause.

Historical origins of statelessness in Lebanon

Dr. Dahrouge identified two broad historical drivers behind statelessness in Lebanon.

The first stems from the creation of the modern Lebanese state under the French Mandate beginning in 1920, particularly the country’s only official population census in 1932.

During that census, more than 60,000 people were classified as foreigners, excluded from citizenship despite the country’s population being only around 800,000.

Residents were required to prove they had lived on Lebanese territory for more than 6 months to obtain Lebanese nationality, a principle derived from post-Ottoman legal arrangements following the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne.

While many settled communities demonstrated residency, some through nepotism, numerous nomadic and semi-nomadic populations, including Bedouin tribes, were unable to satisfy administrative requirements despite their long-standing presence on the territory that became Lebanon.

Others deliberately refused registration, largely because of historical mistrust of government authorities inherited from the Ottoman period, when registration was associated with military conscription. Many feared the new French authorities would impose similar obligations and chose not to register.

Dr. Dahrouge argued that these decisions, combined with administrative shortcomings and political considerations, resulted in entire families being excluded from Lebanese nationality. Their descendants inherited this status across generations. Some individuals also missed registration because of poor communication in remote rural areas.

Different categories of stateless people

Dr. Dahrouge highlighted that statelessness in Lebanon is far more diverse than commonly assumed. He distinguished between stateless persons of Lebanese origin and non-Lebanese stateless populations residing in the country.

Among those of Lebanese origin, he identified two principal categories.

The first consists of individuals referred to as “Maktoum el Qayd” (مكتومو القيد) who have no civil registration record whatsoever. Some inherited this status from previous generations, while others were simply never registered at birth. The latter include those whose parents were themselves Lebanese citizens but failed to register their births within the legally prescribed period.

The second comprises individuals classified as “under study” (قيد الدرس) a category established by Lebanese authorities during the mid-20th century, to recognize certain unresolved nationality claims without granting full citizenship. Although this status provides limited administrative recognition, holders remain effectively stateless.

Administrative obstacles continue to produce statelessness

While historical factors explain inherited statelessness, Lebanon’s current legal framework continues to generate new cases.

Lebanese law allows parents 1 year following a child’s birth to complete birth registration through ordinary administrative procedures. Once that period expires, registration requires judicial proceedings involving legal representation, DNA testing, court procedures, and considerable financial costs; a DNA test typically costs around $500.

According to Dr. Dahrouge, this system places responsibility almost entirely on parents rather than on the state. He contrasted Lebanon’s approach with many European countries, where hospitals automatically transmit birth information to civil registries, ensuring that children are registered regardless of their parents’ circumstances.

The state places the responsibility for birth registration on the parents instead of making it an automatic state responsibility.

Poverty, family circumstances, and mixed marriages

Administrative barriers are compounded by wider social and economic realities.

Dr. Dahrouge identified poverty, illiteracy, lack of awareness, family disputes, imprisonment of parents, and substance abuse as frequent reasons why births remain unregistered.

Many people genuinely do not know how or when to complete the registration process.

Mixed marriages involving foreign spouses present additional complications. Marriages between Lebanese citizens and foreign nationals require approval from the General Security Directorate before being fully registered. When the foreign spouse lacks legal residency, particularly among Syrian refugees, procedures often stall, delaying marriage registration and creating obstacles to registering children.

As a result, children born in these circumstances face a heightened risk of statelessness despite legitimate family ties to Lebanon.

Beyond Lebanese-origin statelessness

Dr. Dahrouge stressed that discussions of statelessness often overlook non-Lebanese stateless populations residing in Lebanon.

Besides Palestinian refugees, internationally recognized as stateless, Lebanon hosts individuals from diverse backgrounds whose legal situations remain unresolved due to displacement, migration, or complex family circumstances.

Historical migration also contributed to this reality. Various communities, including Greeks fleeing Smyrna, Kurdish migrants, Assyrians, Syriacs, Armenians, and others, settled in Lebanon during different periods of the 20th century. While many later obtained Lebanese nationality through naturalization, particularly through the 1994 decree, which included only one third of stateless individuals while the other two thirds served broader political interests, others remained outside formal citizenship frameworks for years.

He also highlighted that contemporary migration continues to create new cases, particularly among migrant workers and displaced populations whose children may face difficulties obtaining nationality from either parent’s country.

Measuring the scale of the problem

According to UNHCR, approximately 4.5 million people worldwide are currently stateless, although the actual number is believed to be significantly higher because many countries do not maintain comprehensive records.

Although statelessness is often perceived as affecting very large numbers of people, Dr. Dahrouge argued that the problem among persons of Lebanese origin is both identifiable and manageable through targeted public policies. Siren Associates’ research estimates that Lebanon has between 25,000 and 30,000 stateless persons of Lebanese origin.

It is actually the size of a large town, it is not an unmanageable number.

Importantly, approximately half of these cases involve individuals whose births were never properly registered and whose legal status could potentially be regularized through relatively straightforward administrative reforms.

Without meaningful intervention, however, the problem will continue to expand across generations as unregistered individuals have children who also remain outside Lebanon’s civil registration system.

Recommendations for lasting reform

Rather than treating statelessness as one indivisible challenge, Dr. Dahrouge quoted Siren’s research recommendations, which advocated dividing the issue into separate categories requiring tailored solutions.

For non-registered individuals, one solution would be simplifying administrative procedures, extending registration deadlines, reducing reliance on costly judicial proceedings, providing legal aid, subsidizing DNA testing, and organizing targeted documentation campaigns. This would solve almost 50% of the problem.

Public awareness initiatives are also needed, particularly in regions where the risk of statelessness remains highest.

The remaining half of the cases involving inherited statelessness and those classified as “under study” (قيد الدرس) require broader political and legislative decisions addressing long-standing nationality claims, making them considerably more complex.

The state must also assume greater institutional responsibility for birth registration by moving toward automated systems similar to those adopted elsewhere. This would reduce dependence on individual initiative and help minimize future cases.

Although politically sensitive, statelessness can be addressed through administrative reforms, public awareness, and targeted legal solutions. Only then would Lebanon have the opportunity to prevent future generations from remaining without nationality while providing long-overdue solutions for those who have lived without legal recognition for years.

The longer we postpone solutions, the larger the problem will become for future generations.