Recognition of Palestine Does Not End Palestinian Statelessness, Legal Analysis Warns

Some 157 UN member states — roughly 80% of the UN's membership — now recognise Palestine as a State. Yet a detailed legal analysis argues that Palestinians without another nationality remain stateless under international law, and that states treating them otherwise risk treaty breaches with serious consequences for the individuals concerned.

The analysis turns on article 1(1) of the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons (CSSP), which defines a stateless person as someone "not considered as a national by any State under the operation of its law." Three conditions must be met to escape statelessness: a State exists; it considers the person a national in the politico-legal sense; and it does so under its law. Recognition of Palestine may answer the first condition. It cannot answer the other two.

Why statehood alone doesn't settle it

First, the criteria for statehood themselves remain contested. The dispute between scholars Marko Milanovic and Guglielmo Verdirame in July-August 2025 turned on article 1 of the 1933 Montevideo Convention: a permanent population, defined territory, government, and capacity to enter into relations with other states. As Crawford put it in Brownlie's Principles of Public International Law (9th edn, 2019, p 118), the enumeration "is no more than a basis for further investigation." Recognition, on the orthodox view, is declaratory — "the status of an entity as a State is, in principle, independent of recognition."

Second, "Palestinian nationality" carries two different meanings. Palestinians have long been recognised as a national group — article 22 of the 1919 Covenant of the League of Nations provisionally recognised their "existence as independent nations." But that is nationality in a historico-biological sense (shared tradition, culture and identity), not state citizenship under Weis's classic distinction. A person can hold Palestinian nationality yet fail the CSSP test.

Third, and decisively: Palestine has no nationality law. Israel declared statehood on 14 May 1948 but enacted its Nationality Law only on 1 April 1952, leaving a gap in which statelessness persisted. The Palestinian Authority published a draft citizenship law in 2011; no such law was ever adopted. The documents the Authority issues cover identification and travel for West Bank and Gaza residents only, and have never purported to evidence citizenship.

What's at stake for practitioners?

The practical stakes are substantial. Miscategorising Palestinians as nationals strips them of treaty protections: 99 states are party to the CSSP (rights to work, housing, education, social security, identity papers, and protection from expulsion, plus facilitated naturalisation under article 32), and 82 to the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, which requires states to grant nationality to otherwise stateless children born in their territory. Some 149 states are party to the 1951 Refugee Convention or its 1967 Protocol, where stateless claimants are assessed against their "country of former habitual residence" — a concept that, unlike "country of nationality," does not require a State.

Which states get it wrong?

State practice diverges dramatically. The United Kingdom continues to treat Palestinians without another nationality as stateless, despite recognising Palestine in 2025; Cyprus, Luxembourg and Poland do the same, per a European Migration Network survey. Norway went the other way: an instruction dated 17 October 2024 stipulates that applicants "who are citizens of Palestine shall no longer be considered stateless applicants." Bulgaria, Ireland, Slovakia, Slovenia and Sweden also treat such Palestinians as non-stateless.

Sweden's justification is blunt: "Legally it is considered that Palestine has citizens even if the state lacks a citizenship law." Bulgaria points to identification documents issued by Palestinian authorities — which, as the analysis notes, do not attest to citizenship. Both approaches sit uneasily with settled doctrine: the ICJ in Nottebohm (1953) confirmed that "international law leaves it to each State to lay down the rules governing the grant of its own nationality." A foreign forum cannot conjure a nationality the putative state of origin has never created by law.

UNHCR recommended in October 2025 that Norway revise its policy for CSSP compliance. The paradox is stark: recognising Palestine, a step meant to advance Palestinian self-determination, has led some states into errors that deny Palestinians the very protections statelessness and refugee law afford them.