7: Individuals and Groups Outside of the State System

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Learning Objectives

Explore and define the term ‘stateless’ and what factors can cause ‘statelessness.’
Analyse and discuss the refugee crisis noting the key international conventions related to refugees and state obligations to refugees, including environmental refugees.
Compare and contrast statist vs. human security approaches to refugees and asylum seekers.
Discuss what is meant by ‘alienated citizenship’ and how it can lead to sub-state terrorism.
Compare and contrast statist vs. human security approaches to countering terrorism.

Anna Hayes

In this chapter the security status of individuals and groups outside of the state system is examined. The chapter begins with an examination of statelessness and its drivers. It then examines the extent and causes of the global refugee crisis, illustrated by case examples from the global north and the global south. Within this discussion, the chapter also explores the relatively new phenomenon of environmental refugees, and how climate change could cause an increase in forced migration as vulnerable populations are compelled to leave their home locales due to climatic changes. In doing so it discusses the precarious situation of environmental refugees, who are still not recognised under the United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR) definition of a refugee. The chapter then considers vastly different individuals and groups outside of the state system to those mentioned above, namely alienated citizens and terrorists. Avenues leading to the alienation of the citizen from the state are described, including roads towards terrorism and the possible effects of anti-terrorism legislation and strategies on the status of individuals. Case examples from current issues are discussed throughout the chapter.