Updated Nansen Passport System Needed Because Putin Regime’s Approach to Emigres Puts Many in Impossible Situation, Shtepa Says

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 17 – After the Soviet government stripped Russian emigres of their citizenship in 1921, the League of Nations issued what became known as Nansen Passports, in honor of Norwegian explorer Fridjof Nansen who promoted them. These documents gave these stateless persons status and the ability to get residence permits and seek citizenship.

    Hundreds of thousands of people literally were saved by these documents; and for that reason, the office which issued them ultimately received the Nobel Prize in 1938. Since that time, some countries and international organizations have issued such documents to stateless persons, extending to them many of the rights and protections that the Nansen passports did.

    The Putin regime has behaved differently and in many ways has left those Russians who have moved abroad and do not want to return but rather to acquire live and acquire citizenship in other countries. Most importantly, it has not stripped them of citizenship and left them in the condition of stateless persons.

    Many countries around the world which do not recognize dual citizenship require that an applicant for citizenship in them lack citizenship in another or have given up that citizenship. But the Russian government requires that Russians wishing to do that appear at Russian consulates or embassies, something they are loathe to do.

    Vadim Shtepa, who has lived in Estonia for a decade and edits the Region.Expert portal there, is one of the new emigres who has been caught up in this Catch 22 situation and is calling for a new approach, one that would extend in a modified form some kind of Nansen Passport or at least understanding to the current situation (region.expert/journalists-terrorists/).

    He acknowledges that the situation today is “completely different” than was the case in the 1920s. There has not been any rupture in state authority “because legally the Russian Federation still exists.” Consequently, other states can insist that those with Russian passports must follow its laws, even though that is “completely impossible” given how “wild” they are.

    In Soviet times, Moscow stripped those who left of their citizenship. If the Putin regime did something similar, Shtepa continues, “that would be ideal: I would immediately go to the migration department with my cancelled citizenship [in the Russian Federation] and apply for Estonian citizenship.”

    But Putin’s Russia “doesn’t deprive us of citizenship. On the contrary,” it insists that we are still its citizens and thus subject to its various fines and other punishments. “This is a more cunning and insidious policy,” Shtepa says, one that Western countries must take note of and consider how to counter, possibly with a modified Nansen Passport as a start system.