Citizens of the world. New Nansen passports could protect those left stateless.

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 The idea of ​​taxing emigrants' income at 30% has been replaced by allowing them to pay the standard 13% personal income tax.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.