International Influences in Transition Societies: The Effect of UNHCR
and other IOs on Citizenship Policies in Ukraine(1)
Oxana Shevel(2)
This paper analyzes the effects of international organizations on Ukrainian citizenship policies in the post-1991 period. As over 250,000 Crimean Tatars repatriated to Ukraine in the late 1980s and early 1990s after being forcefully deported in 1944, some 100,000 of them found themselves without Ukrainian citizenship, of which some 25,000 were stateless. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and other international organizations have been working with the Ukrainian government to facilitate access to Ukrainian citizenship for these formerly deported people (FDPs).
The paper provides an overview of UNHCR’s and other international organizations’ (IOs’) activities aimed at bringing about changes in Ukrainian citizenship policy and facilitating access of FDPs to Ukrainian citizenship. In examining IOs’ effectiveness, the paper distinguishes among three types of IOs’ effects: their effect on domestic policy formation regarding different elements of citizenship policy; on interpretation of different legal provisions by central and local-level authorities; and on policy implementation. The paper seeks to specify under what conditions and through what mechanisms IOs influence domestic policy in each of the three areas.
Research findings suggest that, overall, IOs had greater effect at the level of policy interpretation and implementation than on policy formation. With regard to the latter, IOs’ effectiveness was limited to policy elements that were not highly politicized and divisive domestically, while on issues that were politicized, domestic political considerations were the main determinants of policy progress. The paper identifies “best practices” and most successful strategies of IOs in operating in a transition country, and specific features of the political, economic, and legal environment that sets a transition country apart from stable polities. Finally, the paper calls for an appropriate approach by international actors.
Research presented in this paper is part of a larger project (Ph.D. dissertation in progress) that examines variations in the effect of formal international organizations on refugee and citizenship policies in four post-Communist countries (the Czech Republic, Poland, Ukraine and Russia). For this paper the author conducted research Ukraine (in the capital Kiev, and on the Crimean peninsula in Simferopol, Bakhchisarai and Yalta) on the effect the UNHCR and some other international organizations have had on citizenship policies in this country. Research methodology consisted of extensive interviews with staff of IOs in Kiev and in Crimea, Ukrainian government officials, NGO representatives, and Crimean Tatar leaders, and reading of IO and government documents, Ukrainian press reports, and proceedings from UNHCR-organized conferences and workshops on citizenship problems in Ukraine.
II. Introduction and summary: The
Citizenship Problem of FDPs in Ukraine and its Solution (1991-1999)
When Soviet citizenship ceased to exist in December
1991, some 287 million people were left with or in need of a new citizenship. Ukraine, like most of the successor states
of the USSR (with the notable exception of the Baltic States), defined the
initial body of citizens in an inclusive way, on the basis of residency in
the territory of the country. The
Law of Ukraine “On Citizenship of Ukraine” adopted by the Ukrainian parliament
on 8 October 1991 recognized as Ukrainian citizens “persons who at the moment
of the entry of this law into force (13 November 1991) have been residing
in Ukraine, regardless of origin, social and property position, or racial
or national affiliation, sex, education, language, political views, religious
convictions, and type and nature of occupation, who are not citizens of other
states.”(3)
The inclusive principle of the law, however, did not
prevent the emergence of the citizenship problem that soon drew the attention
of the world community. The problem
arose as a result of the massive return to the Crimean peninsula in Ukraine
of Crimean Tatars and other formerly-deported peoples (FDPs) who had been
deported en masse from Crimea by the Soviet regime in 1944 on charges of collaboration
with the Nazis.(4) Mass
return to Crimea started in the late 1980s, after the Crimean Tatars won a
decades-long fight with the Soviet regime for the right to return to their
homeland, and to date approximately 258,000 have returned to Crimea where
they now constitute about 12 percent of the population (see Figures 1 and
2 in the Appendices below). With residency
in Ukraine on 13 November 1991 (the date of entry into force of the 1991 citizenship
law) being the main criterion for inclusion in the initial body of citizens,
those 146,547 FDPs who returned to Ukraine before 13 November 1991 automatically
became citizens of Ukraine,(5) while some 108,000 who returned
to Ukraine after that date did not get Ukrainian citizenship, assuming the
status of either foreigners or stateless persons (see Figure 3).
As Figure 3 illustrates, among
the 108,000 returnees there were two categories of non-citizens. The first were de jure stateless FDPs (about 25,000) who left their previous country
of residency before that country’s
new citizenship legislation entered into force, and thus possessed neither
Ukrainian nor any other citizenship. The
second, larger group (some 81,000), consisted of those who left their previous
country of residency after that
country’s new citizenship legislation entered into force. These FDPs thus became de jure citizens of the countries of their prior residency. For the majority of FDPs (61,000, or 75 percent)
it was Uzbekistan; for some 13 percent (11,000), Russia; the remaining 9,800
(12 percent) had citizenship of other CIS countries (Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan,
Kazakhstan). Of those with de jure citizenship of other CIS states,
many could be considered de facto
stateless, as FDPs who repatriated to Ukraine have not effectively exercised
their citizenship of other CIS countries.
According to the Uzbek embassy information given to the UNHCR, as of
mid-1998 none of the returnees from Uzbekistan ever approached the Uzbek embassy
in Kiev for diplomatic protection or assistance, nor registered with the embassy
as Uzbek law requires. Sociological
research also indicates that many FDPs were not even aware that they were
Uzbek citizens, commonly believing that their legal residency in Ukraine made
them Ukrainian citizens.(6) Old residency stamps in FDPs’ Soviet passports
signifying their prior residency in Uzbekistan or another CIS country were
often the only indication that they were legally citizens of other CIS states.
Furthermore, de facto Uzbek citizens permanently living
in Ukraine were at risk of becoming de
jure stateless, since Article 21 (2) of the Uzbek citizenship law foresees
loss of Uzbek citizenship “where a person permanently residing abroad has
not registered without good reasons in a consular institution [of Uzbekistan]
within five years.”(7)
For reasons that will be elaborated
in the next section of this paper, until 1997 prospects of policy change remained
virtually deadlocked because of conflicting interests around this issue, as
well as legal and informational hurdles. By the mid-1990s, the citizenship problem of
FDPs in Ukraine received international attention and IOs became involved in
trying to find a solution to the lack of Ukrainian citizenship by tens of
thousands of FDPs. In line with its
mandate to reduce statelessness received from the United National General
Assembly, and in response to the request from the Ukrainian government, the
UNHCR was the first international organization to get most actively involved
in the search for a solution to the citizenship problem of some 107,000 returnees
who did not have Ukrainian citizenship. The
Council of Europe (COE) and the Organization for Security and Cooperation
in Europe (OSCE) were also involved in trying to solve the citizenship dilemma
of formerly deported people in Ukraine.
Section IV of this paper will
analyze the activities of these IOs, and their impact on the policy changes
that took place after 1996 when the IOs became actively involved with the citizenship issue. Figures 4, 5, and 6 illustrate progress in
the reduction of statelessness in Ukraine, and affiliation to Ukrainian citizenship
of FDPs who were Uzbek citizens. As
Figure 4 illustrates, in the period between 1992 and 1996 only about 300 FDPs
have received Ukrainian citizenship. April
1997 amendments to the citizenship law, which removed a number of criteria
the FDPs had to fulfill to obtain Ukrainian citizenship, such as a source
of income, knowledge of the Ukrainian language, and a five year residency
requirement (see Table 1 in the appendix), opened the door to Ukrainian citizenship
to those who were de jure stateless.(8)
As seen in Figure 5, by June 1999 all 25,000 stateless FDPs had acquired Ukrainian
citizenship, and thus the problem of statelessness was resolved.
Even after the April 1997 amendments,
however, the citizenship problem was far from over. Some 82,000 FDPs in Ukraine who were de jure citizens of other CIS states were
still unable to acquire Ukrainian citizenship, barred by the requirement that
they obtain documented proof of release from other citizenship. The requirement, as will be elaborated below,
presented virtually insurmountable material and logistic obstacles for the
overwhelming majority of FDPs. It
was not until the August 1998 agreement between Ukraine and Uzbekistan that
the majority of FDPs (who were Uzbek citizens—see Figure 3) were able to apply
for Ukrainian citizenship. As Figure
6 illustrates, as of October 1999 almost 70 percent of FDPs with Uzbek citizenship
(43,000 persons) have applied for Ukrainian citizenship under the procedure
set forth in the August 1998 Ukrainian-Uzbek agreement. For those FDPs who hold citizenship in CIS
countries that do not have such bilateral agreements with Ukraine, however,
access to Ukrainian citizenship continues to depend on their obtaining a proof
of release from previous citizenship.
Given this evolution of Ukraine’s
citizenship policy after the involvement of IOs in mid-1990s, the central
question this study asks is, what was the role of IOs in these policy changes?
The rest of this paper will be devoted to answering this question.
III. The Situation Prior to International Involvement:
Conflicting Domestic Political Interests, and Political and Legal Impediments
to Policy Changes
The need to focus research agendas on specifying the logic and mechanisms
of “complex dynamic processes” that characterize the interaction between international
and domestic politics—in other words, to bridge the division between studies
of international and domestic politics—has been emphasized for over two decades,(9) and continues to be emphasized today.(10) International actors and institutions project
their influence not in a domestic vacuum, but in an environment where certain
interests, coalitions and institutional arrangements are in place. Therefore, whether and how an IO can achieve
its policy objectives depends not only on the attributes of IOs (such as staff
professionalism or sufficient budget), but also on the constellation of political
interests in the domestic environment where IOs operate, and IOs’ ability
to understand and effectively navigate these interests. Therefore, before moving on to the analysis
of IOs’ abilities to bring about changes in Ukraine’s citizenship policy,
this section of the paper will outline the domestic political and legal environment,
and conflicting domestic interests over the question of citizenship that had
developed in Ukraine by the time IOs became involved with this problem in
the mid-1990s.
As noted above, the citizenship problem in Ukraine that
the Crimean Tatars and other FDPs have experienced stemmed from the massive
return of the Crimean Tatars to Crimea in the late 1980s and early 1990s (see
Figure 2). The citizenship law, passed in November 1991
after the Ukrainian Parliament adopted the Act of State Independence on 24
August 1991, did not take into account the consequences of the massive return
of the Crimean Tatars to Ukraine. The
“triple transition” process—the need to engage in state building while simultaneously
undertaking political and economic reforms—presented a unique and unprecedented
challenge to state builders of the newly independent states on the territory
of the former USSR. Such founding
laws as those applying to citizenship had to be adopted without delay, and
in Ukraine there was additional time pressure to pass the law before the 1
December 1991 independence referendum in which Ukrainian citizens were to
vote for or against Ukrainian state independence, as well as to elect Ukraine’s
first president. Further, once a law is in place and its norms
become operational, its implementation can produce consequences that the law’s
creators had not intended or had overlooked.
A. Socio-economic and Political Challenges Associated
with the Crimean Tatar Return and Integration in Ukraine
1. Destitute Socio-economic Conditions of Crimean
Tatar Returnees
Crimean Tatars who returned to Ukraine found themselves
in an inhospitable economic, social and political environment.
Therefore, the citizenship problem was one among many obstacles to
integration that they have faced. With
the peak of massive Crimean Tatar return coinciding with the beginning of
hyperinflation, many returnees saw their life-long savings and money received
for the sale of property in their place of origin erode in a matter of months
or even weeks. The rapidly deteriorating
economic situation, plus the unwillingness of local Crimean authorities to
allocate housing and land to returnees, have led to numerous violent clashes
between the returnees and local police and sometimes residents, while Crimean
Tatars were left in a destitute economic situation even in comparison with
the depressed and deteriorating economy in Crimea and Ukraine.(11) Currently, as many as an estimated 60 percent
of Crimean Tatars are unemployed (at least double the rate for Crimea as a
whole), and around 50 percent lack proper housing. Out of 291 Crimean Tatar settlements, around
25 percent do not have electricity, 70 percent are without water, 90 percent
without tarmac roads, 96 percent are without gas, and none has sewers.(12)
2. Crimean Tatars and Political Conflict over
Crimea’s Status within Ukraine
In addition to having pressing socio-economic
problems, Crimean Tatars also became the center of high-profile political
conflict concerning Ukraine’s jurisdiction over the Crimean peninsula. Crimea became part of Ukraine in February 1954
after being transferred from Russia to Ukraine by the Soviet government. After Ukraine gained independence, Crimea became
a bone of contention between Russia and Ukraine, with the Russian parliament
and many prominent Russian politicians questioning the legality of the 1954
transfer. Crimea was the only region
in Ukraine where Russians were in the majority (64 percent of the population,
with Ukrainians being 23 percent, and the Crimean Tatars currently at around
12 percent). Not only ethnically and
linguistically, but also politically, Crimea was not a region that favored
Ukrainian independence, and this further produced tensions in the relations
between Crimean authorities and the central Ukrainian government in Kiev.
The peninsula has enjoyed a reputation as a Communist party stronghold
because of its status as a playground for the Communist nomenklatura
in the Soviet period, its popularity as a retirement site for high-level government
officials, and the substantial military and naval presence (the Black Sea
Fleet is based in the Crimean port of Sevastopol).
The majority of the Crimean electorate has supported the Communist
and pro-Russian forces, as is illustrated by the consistently strong showing
of these political forces during local and national elections in Crimea.(13)
As such, the political and ideological orientations
of the majority of the Crimean electorate and Crimean leadership were in stark
contrast to those of the majority of the Crimean Tatars.
Harboring grievances against the Soviet regime and Communist ideology,
the majority of the Crimean Tatars are staunchly anti-Communist, and Crimean
Tatar leaders tend to see the Ukrainian state as their only ally against the
hostile stand of local Crimean leaders. Such
strategic rationale, as well as long-standing personal ties between Crimean
Tatars leaders and Ukrainian dissidents, made the Crimean Tatars the main
supporters of Ukrainian independence in Crimea, and Ukraine’s jurisdiction
over the peninsula. Their pro-Ukrainian position made the Crimean
Tatars natural allies of the pro-Ukrainian forces in Ukraine and in Crimea.
Referring to the weakness of local pro-Ukrainian forces, Crimean Tatar
leaders like to say that Crimean Tatars are “the only Ukrainians in Crimea.”(14)
If the Crimean Tatars’ support for Ukrainian independence
has been evident and consistent, as demonstrated by the Crimean Tatar voting
record during parliamentary and presidential elections,(15)
the central government’s support of Crimean Tatar political and legal demands
has not been so. In their quest for the restoration of their
rights, Crimean Tatars have advanced a number of political and legal demands
that have been viewed highly negatively by the Communist leadership of the
Crimean parliament, and have been a cause of the on-going political confrontation
between the Crimean Tatars and Crimea’s leadership.(16) In this situation,
Kiev was left with the difficult task of balancing virtually diametrically
opposed political interests of Crimea’s numerically much larger “Russian-speaking”
electorate, and its smaller but highly organized and mobilized Tatar minority.
Given the inhospitable political climate in Crimea, Crimean Tatars
have sided with Kiev almost by default, while Kiev has been in a position
to rely on the Crimean Tatar support without offering much in return.
B. The
Citizenship Problem of FDPs in Crimea
1. Crimean Tatars and
Ukrainian Authorities: Disagreements on the Nature of the Problem and Solutions
Needed
In this context, the lack of Ukrainian citizenship was just
one of many economic, social and political problems with which the returnees
were faced. Crimean Tatar demands for Ukrainian citizenship
usually have been voiced as part of a larger spectrum of demands for the restoration
of their political rights, and thus have been subject to the same political
controversies and tensions as other, more controversial issues (such as national
territorial autonomy status and group representation). Analysis of documents, press reports, and interviews
with both Ukrainian government representatives and Crimean Tatar leaders indicate
that on the question of citizenship, a de facto deadlock existed in the early and mid-1990s.
The authorities were initially
reluctant to acknowledge that changes to the citizenship legislation were
necessary. They posited that the Crimean
Tatars should individually resort to existing citizenship acquisition procedures
specified in the law, and often blamed the Crimean Tatar leaders for playing
a “political card” by calling on the government to give Ukrainian citizenship
to the Crimean Tatars “en masse,” instead of encouraging Crimean Tatars to
apply individually according to existing procedures. Crimean Tatar leaders were commonly accused
by many Ukrainian officials of trying to keep the Crimean Tatar population
disenfranchised, as this provided the Tatar leaders with leverage in negotiating
political benefits from Ukrainian and Crimean authorities (such as seat quotas
for the Tatars in the Crimean parliament, or collective Ukrainian citizenship).
The Crimean Tatar leaders, on their part, pointed out that they had
never discouraged individual citizenship applications,(17)
but that the procedure was so cumbersome and costly that it presented virtually
insurmountable logistical and material obstacles for the vast majority of
FDPs, and thus changes were necessary. Additionally,
Crimean Tatars saw the existing citizenship policy as an unjust one that made
Crimean Tatars hostages of Ukrainian and other CIS countries’ legal systems:
Crimean Tatars had become Uzbek (or other CIS countries’) citizens against
their will as a consequence of their forced deportation, and now they were
expected to apply for and pay to be released from citizenship that they had
never asked for in the first place.
Requirements for acquiring Ukrainian citizenship are
specified in Article 17 of the 1991 Law on Citizenship of Ukraine, and government
orders regulating the application process (March 1992 Regulation on citizenship
application procedure approved by the order of the President,(18) and unpublished instruction of the Ministry of Interior from
May 1993 detailing how responsible officials are to handle applications).(19)
|
Box 1 (2) permanent residence on
the territory of Ukraine over the last five years. This rule does not apply
to persons who arrived in Ukraine for permanent residence and expressed
a desire to become Ukrainian citizens provided that they were born or
prove that at least one of their parents, grandfather, or grandmother
was born on its territory and are not citizens of other states;(20) (3) knowledge of Ukrainian
language at a level sufficient for communication; (4) availability of legal
sources of income; (5) recognition of and compliance
with the Constitution of Ukraine. |
In practice, the procedure
has been extremely lengthy, cumbersome, and costly, and indeed insurmountable
for many returnees. In one of its
bulletins, the “Assistance” Foundation, an NGO established with the assistance
of the UNHCR to help FDPs apply for Ukrainian citizenship, described in detail all stages of a sample
case of citizenship application by an FDP.
The procedure took about a year in Ukraine, plus another six to twelve
months to obtain an Uzbek certificate of release. Among the documents an applicant had to submit, in accordance with
the requirements set forth in the government’s interpretation of the law,
were certificates from a psychiatrist, dermatologist, venereal disease hospital,
and AIDS testing facility. All these
certificates had to be paid for, and the applicant had to travel, usually
several times, to establishments issuing them.
The cost of obtaining all required documents was 73 hryvnia at a time
when the average monthly wage in Crimea was 132.5 hryvnia.(21)
Given over 60 percent unemployment
among the Crimean Tatars, and their settlements in remote areas often without
easy access to transportation, many found these requirements all the more
insurmountable. The US$100 fee charged
by the Uzbek authorities for the certificate confirming release from Uzbek
citizenship—a requirement beyond all those set by the Ukrainian side—was well
beyond the means of the returnees. Those
who were de jure stateless and thus
did not have to obtain a certificate of release from prior citizenship still
had to fulfill all other requirements. Being
recent returnees, most of the Crimean Tatars did not satisfy the five year
residency requirement; further, to prove their ancestors’ origin from the
territory of Ukraine was a onerous task for many, especially for those whose
ancestors had been born in Ukraine but died in places of deportation, as the
archives containing data on those deported were often incomplete or destroyed. Documentation of a legal source of income was
also an impediment, since the majority were unemployed and survived by small
trading, gardening, and other such unregistered income-generating activities.
As a result of all these obstacles
to acquiring citizenship, Crimean Tatar leaders demanded a policy decision
that would grant all returnees Ukrainian citizenship automatically on the
basis of written application. This
demand, as worded in the January 1997 Appeal cited above,(22)
asked Ukraine “to give Ukrainian citizenship to all Crimean Tatars and members
of their families who live in Crimea and expressed desire to become Ukrainian
citizens. The Appeal also asked the
authorities to amend the law ‘On citizenship of Ukraine’ so that it would
enable Crimean Tatars and members of their families who return to Crimea for
permanent residency to obtain Ukrainian citizenship by way of application
and without being subjected to any limiting requirements.”(23)
2. Ukraine’s Insistence on the Single Citizenship
Principle and Avoidance of Dual Citizenship with Russia: Consequences for
the Crimean Tatars
Such demands of the Crimean
Tatars were rebutted by the authorities on the grounds that citizenship affiliation
is an individual decision requiring personal application, as well for fear
of possible negative political and geopolitical consequences of a decision
that would enable Crimean Tatars who were de
jure citizens of Uzbekistan and other CIS states to become Ukrainian citizens
at the same time. Ukraine’s insistence
on the individual application procedure, and in particular on the requirement
to obtain official proof of release from their prior citizenship, stemmed
from Ukraine’s determination to adhere to the single citizenship principle
in law and in practice and the fear of negative consequences of dual citizenship,
in particular with Russia, for Ukrainian statehood.
While Ukrainian national-democratic
politicians and groups have insisted on the single citizenship principle as
a way to consolidate new Ukrainian statehood, leftist forces have favored
dual citizenship, in particular with Russia. Since the early 1990s, the issue of single
citizenship has become a controversial and highly politicized one in Ukraine,
and it was the issue that sparked most of the debate when the first citizenship
law was discussed in the parliament in the fall of 1991.(24) After heated debates on the issue during the
first and second readings of the 1991 citizenship law in October 1991 and
several failed rounds of voting, a compromise was struck and was reflected
in Article 1 of the 1991 law, which read: “In Ukraine there is a single citizenship.
Dual citizenship is allowed on the basis of bilateral international
agreements.”
This wording was supported
by those MPs who favored dual Ukrainian-Russian citizenship, since it was
expected at the time of the debate that in due course Ukraine would conclude
a bilateral agreement with Russia to establish dual citizenship. However, Ukraine never concluded any such agreement,
despite advocacy for it by Russia and many political forces in Ukraine.
The principle of single citizenship was further strengthened with the
passage of the Constitution in 1996 (Article 4 of the Constitution states
“in Ukraine there is a single citizenship”), and April 1997 amendments to
the Ukrainian citizenship law, which removed the clause on possible dual citizenship
on the basis of bilateral agreements, citing the need to put the law in line
with the Constitution, and overriding objectives by advocates of dual citizenship.
Ukraine, as its Deputy Foreign
Minister noted, feared
negative consequences of dual
citizenship for Ukraine’s national interest….The presence of people with dual
citizenship in regions where a minority compactly resides…in a certain manner
stimulates anti-Constitutional ‘pro-autonomy’ activities of certain political
forces, which will lead to increased socio-political tensions in the country….Concluding
agreements on dual citizenship may in the future lead to forceful interference
by one state into internal affairs of the other under the pretext of protecting
the rights of its citizens(25)
—a clear reference to the situation
around Crimea, albeit in diplomatic language.
Furthermore, implications for
Ukraine of the Russian citizenship law itself were cause for Ukraine’s concern.
Article 13(2) of the 1991 Russian citizenship law recognizes as Russian
citizens by birth those former Soviet citizens born after 30 December 1922
who were born, or at least one of whose parents was born, on the territory
of the Russian Federation. “Territory of Russian Federation is understood
to mean territory that was part of the Russian Federation at the moment of
a person’s birth.”(26) This last provision of the law basically recognizes all residents
of Crimea born between December 1922 and 1954 (when Crimea was transferred
from Russia to Ukraine) and their descendents as Russian citizens by birth.
Although Ukraine’s concern over negative consequences
of dual citizenship with Russia for the development of Ukrainian statehood
was the driving force behind its insistence on single citizenship, the Crimean
Tatars with de jure citizenship
of Uzbekistan and other CIS states became inadvertent victims of this concern—an
ironic situation, given that Crimean Tatars have been consistent supporters
of Ukrainian statehood. However, the
authorities feared that allowing Crimean Tatars who held citizenship of other
CIS states to acquire Ukrainian citizenship without official proof of release
from previous citizenship would create a precedent of dual citizenship, and
could be used by those forces who favored dual citizenship with Russia.
As one Western official put it during an interview, “if not for concerns
about Russia, the Crimean Tatar citizenship problem in Ukraine would not have
existed in the first place.”(27)
IV. Changes in Ukrainian Citizenship Policy and
the Role of International Organizations
As the above discussion seeks
to illustrate, the FDPs’ citizenship problem in Ukraine was embedded in a
web of political complexities and legal deficiencies, and until the mid-1990s
the situation was one of a virtual stand-off between the Crimean Tatar leaders,
who were demanding that the government solve the citizenship problem for them
as a group, and the authorities, who tended to deny that current policy was
sub-optimal and blamed the Crimean Tatars themselves for not actively pursuing
Ukrainian citizenship by way of individual applications.
In the mid-1990s, when the
problem attracted the attention of international organizations, IOs faced
the difficult task of finding a solution that would be acceptable to all the
parties involved. As described in
Section IV(B) below, by mid-1999
significant progress had been achieved—statelessness among FDPs was eliminated
entirely, and procedures enabling the majority of FDPs to become Ukrainian
citizens were put in place. Section
IV of this paper analyzes to what extent these changes were a product of IOs’
efforts.
Section IV(A) analyses the
Ukrainian government’s acknowledgement, by 1995, that changes to the citizenship
policy were indeed necessary. Section
IV(A)1 summarizes the developments and events that led to this decision, while
section IV(A)2 analyzes the importance of the IOs in bringing about this decision.
Section IV(B) analyzes specific
changes to different elements of the citizenship policy that took place after
1995, and IOs’ influence with regard to each of these policy changes.
Section IV(B)1 details changes to different policy elements
that were initiated, while section IV(B)2 assesses the impact of the IOs in
each instance.
A. Ukraine’s Acknowledgement that Citizenship Policy Needs to be Changed:
The Role of IOs
1. How the Problem Gained Attention of IOs, and
How Ukrainian Authorities Moved to Amend the Citizenship Law
Changes to Ukrainian citizenship legislation involved
both an official acknowledgement that the existing policy was sub-optimal
and changes were needed, and, once such an acknowledgement was made, decisions
on the precise changes to be undertaken. As discussed above, until the mid-1990s there
was no consensus on the part of the government acknowledging that the existing
citizenship policy in practice (even if not in theory) precluded the vast
majority of Crimean Tatars from become Ukrainian citizens. For Crimean Tatars themselves, who were struggling
to deal with many socio-economic and political challenges, citizenship was
just one of many concerns. By 1995,
however, the issue was coming to the forefront of government concerns, as
well as those of international organizations.
Between late 1994 and early 1995, UNHCR and OSCE established
their presence in Ukraine. The UNHCR
permanent office in Ukraine opened in June 1995. The UNHCR representative
visited Crimea in July 1995, and a detailed fact-finding mission to Crimea
was conducted in February 1996. With
the initial focus of its activities being refugees in Ukraine, the organization
soon became involved with FPD problems in Crimea, where some persons were
found to be in refugee-like situations; UNHCR’s mandate to prevent and reduce
statelessness also prompted its involvement in the FDPs’ citizenship problem.
The other IO actively involved was the OSCE. The OSCE Mission to Ukraine was established
in June 1994 and became operational in November 1994. The primary task of the mission was to “facilitate the dialogue
between the central Government and the Crimean authorities” over the status
of Crimea within Ukraine, but the mission’s responsibility also included “preparing
reports on the situation of human rights and rights of persons belonging to
national minorities in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea.”(28) In October 1995,
after the problem of citizenship was discussed at a September 1995 round-table
in Crimea organized by the OSCE, the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities,
Max van der Stoel, wrote a letter to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine
in which he referred to the problem of the acquisition of Ukrainian citizenship
by FDPs as “one of the most urgent questions to be settled,” and urged Ukraine
to consider the option of granting Ukrainian citizenship to deportees and
their descendants “if they sign a declaration renouncing the citizenship of
the states they have left.”(29)
At the same time as IOs were establishing their presence
in Ukraine and beginning operations in Crimea, the IOs were further stimulated
to give higher priority to the FDPs’ citizenship problem by the strategy of
the Crimean Tatar Mejlis, which was aimed at attracting international attention
to the plight of the Crimean Tatar people. Since 1994, the Crimean Tatar leaders had held
a growing number of meetings with representatives of Western governments and
international organizations in Ukraine—in 1993 just two such meetings were
conducted; in 1994 there were over two dozen.(30) Crimean Tatar leaders also traveled to various
European countries and IO headquarters to speak about their problems at international
forums and conferences, some held under UN auspices.
By the mid-1990s, the Ukrainian government itself had
come to desire international involvement and assistance for Crimean Tatar
resettlement in Ukraine. Struck by
economic crisis, Ukraine was not capable of independently financing Crimean
Tatar repatriation—according to the estimates, as much as US$2 billion would
be needed to cover the costs of Crimean Tatar integration and return, and
funds the Ukrainian government was able to allocate to this purpose had to
be reduced year after year. Substantial
international assistance was the only possibility to improve the dire economic
situation of FDPs, which could otherwise become a cause of socio-political
crisis. IOs’ involvement in Crimea was further welcomed
by the Ukrainian government because of its protracted political confrontation
with local Crimean authorities over the definition of Crimea’s status within
Ukraine. While some organizations,
especially the OSCE, initially were involved mainly in mediating relations
between central Ukrainian and Crimean authorities, they soon became occupied
with the problems of FDPs in Crimea, as Crimean Tatars were a crucial ethnic
group for the maintenance of overall stability in the region.
The May 1996 CIS Regional Conference on Refugees and
Migrants, which was called by the UNHCR and took place in Geneva, systematically
addressed population displacement in the CIS, including concerns of formerly
deported peoples, and thus brought the problems of FDPs in Ukraine, including
that of citizenship, to the attention of Western donors, governments, and
a number of IOs. Since that time,
it has not left the agenda of IOs operating in Ukraine.
As a result of all these developments, in the spring
of 1995 a decision was taken by the Ukrainian government to prepare a new
edition of the citizenship law. A
working group to draft changes was set up, and the new edition of the citizenship
law was submitted to the Ukrainian parliament in mid-1996.
2. Impact of
IOs on the Ukrainian Government’s Decision to Change the Citizenship Law
Because the Ukrainian government’s 1995 decision to
initiate amendments to the citizenship law was taken at about the same time
as IOs were beginning to establish their presence in Ukraine, one cannot claim
with certainty that IOs were the main determinants of this decision, or, in
other words, that the government would not have taken such a decision on its
own initiative. Rather, a combination
of factors and events that took place at that period of time resulted in the
decision of the Ukrainian government to initiate amendments to the citizenship
law, with IOs’ advocacy for such changes being one of the factors.
However, it is likely that the IOs’ advocacy for changes in the Ukrainian
citizenship policy did, at the very least, speed up the government’s decision.
In terms of the consequences of the existing citizenship policy for
FDPs, the situation in 1995 was no different from that of previous years,
when the government was reluctant to acknowledge that changes were in order.
After the involvement of IOs, pressure for policy changes acquired
an international dimension. In this
light, the decision of the government to initiate changes to the law seems
consistent with the government’s growing interest in international financial
support for the FDPs’ resettlement, as well as for political approval from
western democracies.
Some of the approaches and strategies that the IOs
themselves took further stimulated the Ukrainian government’s willingness
to consider citizenship policy changes. Since the Ukrainian government was
keenly interested in financial and material assistance from the international
community, the UNHCR, as one of its very first projects,
engaged in financing the rehabilitation
of communal buildings in Crimea for the most vulnerable FDPs, many
of whom were in refugee-like situations.
The organization also provided computer and office equipment to the
relevant Ukrainian governmental agencies.
Quick and visible outcomes of such activities served to build confidence
and also paved the way for the government’s future receptivity to UNHCR initiatives
and policy recommendations.
Another area of UNHCR’s and other IOs’ activities in
Ukraine that proved to produce very beneficial consequences—given the specifics
of the environment in which the IOs operated—was the organization of various
round-tables and seminars. Such meetings
(some organized by the UNHCR on an annual basis, and others more frequently,
at different intervals) brought together representatives of international
organizations, officials from relevant governmental agencies, Ukrainian MPs
from relevant committees, Crimean Tatar leaders, and some NGOs.
In the domestic political and institutional context of Ukraine such
meetings were particularly important forums for a number of reasons.
First, unlike in developed democracies that have well-established
and long-functioning governmental institutions, and established procedures
for interaction and exchange of information between various government organs
and outside institutions, in Ukraine such procedures are not yet firmly in
place. As a result, the dissemination
of information is often sub-optimal, not only between the government and outside
organizations, but also between different branches of government, and between
the central and regional offices of the same branch of government.
Forums such as these round-tables and conferences were therefore particularly
valuable, because there members of the government in their presentations (which
they were requested by the UNHCR to prepare also in written form for subsequent
publication) detailed the position of the government on different elements
of citizenship policy, its interpretation of legal provisions, challenges
that the government encountered during its work, and plans for policy changes.
Since, in practice, the letter of the law was usually
implemented by means of administrative decrees issued by one or another government
agency, it was not uncommonly the case that other agencies were unaware of
planned decrees, or confused about how certain provisions were to be interpreted
in practice when applied to particular cases. Therefore, these forums served an additional
function of clarification and discussion among government experts on how the
letter of the law was to be interpreted in practice. Since in addition to senior officials from the central ministries,
practitioners from the regions who worked with often complex individual cases
of FDP applicants were also present, policy-makers of different levels and
of different agencies could draw links between the situation on the ground
and policy responses, while UNHCR could develop a fuller understanding of
the current situation and its main problems.
The function of facilitating communication between
branches of the government and central and regional officials that these UNHCR-organized
seminars and round-tables played may seem trivial in the context of a developed
country with a functioning state. However, in the context of a post-Communist
country engaged in the simultaneous processes of state-building and development,
the importance of such meetings cannot be underestimated. Given economic crisis and dire under-funding
on all levels, it was often the case that officials located in different regions
simply could not communicate among themselves, because even the costs of long-distance
phone calls was more than their budgets could cover. This made the dissemination of information
and clarification of approaches towards the interpretation of different government
orders, as well as identification of practical problems uncovered at the local
level but requiring action by central authorities, a slow and complex task.
Second, the UNHCR sponsorship of forums that brought
together various government officials and enabled them to discuss many outstanding
problems at the same time, also enabled the UNHCR to become better aware of
the specifics and outstanding challenges, and thus to better formulate its
strategy on how and when to get involved.
In Western countries the UNHCR and other IOs can rely on standard channels
of information dissemination from the authorities, as well as on more expensive
informational networks consisting of NGOs, academics, and other resources.
In the post-Communist countries in transition, however, such sources
of information are few and inconsistent.
In such an environment, informal contacts with policy-makers are all
the more important: they commonly serve as one of the main sources from which
the IOs and other observers can obtain information on policy progress and
plans being made by the government.
Third, another positive effect of the forums that the
UNHCR has sponsored in Ukraine has been the venue they presented for the government
representatives and the Crimean Tatar leaders to meet and discuss their different
opinions in a neutral setting under the “mediation” of international actors.
In an often tense domestic political climate, with political tensions
running high around the Crimean Tatars’ political demands, the availability
of a forum where the main interlocutors can meet and discuss the problems
with international observers can be very beneficial.
Such a setting encourages a search for compromise: the authorities
would not wish to be seen by international observers as dismissing Crimean
Tatar demands off hand; nor would it be in the interests of Crimean Tatars
to look like “radicals” in the eyes of the IOs by putting forth demands that
were too broad or too radical. The
forums indeed had such moderating effects on a number of occasions.
For example, after the first such seminar in July 1996, the government
apparently realized it had significantly underestimated the number of people
willing to apply, and had only a limited understanding of the logistical and
legal barriers the procedures posed for potential FDP applicants. The government then reportedly invited proposals
from the Crimean Tatars for practical changes in the administrative procedure
for acquiring citizenship, when it became apparent that the existing procedure
did not take into account the complex situation of many FDPs and discouraged
them from initiating applications.
Finally, since the UNHCR, given its mandate, was involved
only with the citizenship problem of the Crimean Tatars (but not other political
problems), this allowed the issue of citizenship to be “depoliticized” and
to be separated from other contested questions such as voting rights, the
nature of Crimea’s autonomy, and Crimean Tatar representation in the government
organs. As the next section will show,
depoliticization is important, as the more politicized a policy issue has
been, the less likely are IOs to be able to promote policy changes on such
issues.
B. Introduction of Changes to Different Elements of Ukrainian Citizenship
Policy
1. Policy Elements Amended by the 1997 Ukrainian
Citizenship Law and the 1998 Ukrainian-Uzbek Bilateral Agreement
Table 1 in the appendix compares provisions of the
1991 citizenship law, amendments as proposed by the government working group
and approved during the first reading of the law in October 1996, and final
provisions as reflected in the new citizenship law passed by the parliament
in April 1997. The law has substantially
liberalized requirements for acquisition of Ukrainian citizenship for those
with ancestral roots in Ukraine. The
new law exempted FDPs (and their children and grandchildren) from the 5-year
residency requirements, knowledge of Ukrainian language, and proof of legal
sources of income. The FDPs and their
descendants could apply for affiliation to citizenship under a simple procedure
until the end of 1999, and after that date, under a naturalization procedure
that was also simplified for them. One
requirement that remained unchanged was the necessity to document release
from previous citizenship for those FDPs who were de facto citizens of Uzbekistan or other countries.
Interviews with participants in the law discussion
process, and examination of minutes from the parliament during the readings
of the citizenship law, revealed the domestic preferences on the issues that
had emerged by 1997. In Box 2 below,
the dark shaded areas in the top row show what policies were eventually reflected
in the final law passed in April 1997, while the light shaded areas highlight
issues over which the interests of different groups diverged.
|
Box 2 – Support From Different Interest
Groups for Amendments to Citizenship Law |
||||
|
|
Proposed Amendments to Citizenship Law |
|||
|
Interest Group |
Eliminating 5 year
residency requirement |
Eliminating official
source of income requirement |
Eliminating knowledge
of Ukrainian language requirement |
Eliminating proof
of release from previous citizenship requirement |
|
Ukrainian government,
in particular Citizenship Department of the Presidential Administration,
and other law drafters |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
|
Crimean Tatar Mejlis |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Political forces in
the parliament: -- Left & Left/Center |
No one objected during law
discussion in parliament |
No one Objected during law
discussion in parliament |
-- Yes, but not just
for FDPs, but to eliminate completely from the law |
Generally Yes, since
dual citizenship was favored |
|
-- Right & Right/Center |
|
|
-- Far Right and some
Center Right objected |
Generally No, since
single citizenship was favored |
Verbatim reports from the readings of the law in the parliament reveal which
proposed amendments to the citizenship law turned out to be most contested.
The first reading of the new edition of the citizenship law took place
on 30 October 1996, and as soon as the discussion began, it became clear that
the two most contested provisions would be the language requirement and the
issue of dual citizenship to which the requirement to obtain proof of release
from previous citizenship before applying for Ukrainian citizenship was linked
(see shaded sections in the box above). Most
of the debate—on the floor of the parliament as well as during meetings of
the committee between the first and second readings—have centered around these
provisions.
The introductory section of this paper explained why,
in the context of Ukrainian state building and Ukraine’s relations with Russia,
the question of dual citizenship was so politicized, and this was also evident
during the debates in the parliament. The
language question in Ukraine has been politicized for similar reasons.
Heavy Russification during the Soviet period prompted national-democratic
politicians in Ukraine to make it a policy priority to reverse the consequences
of Soviet-era policy and to promote the use of Ukrainian in all spheres of
public life, making it the state language.
However, the majority of the leftist forces, as well as populations
in the eastern and southern regions of the country that were most Russified
and where the majority of Ukraine’s 11 million strong Russian community resides,
have long favored state and/or official status for the Russian language.
Discussion of the citizenship law’s provision making knowledge of Ukrainian
a requirement for citizenship was seen by the leftist groups as an opportunity
to oppose the measure and seek its removal from the law completely.
Some rightist MPs, on their part, were unhappy that the law exempted
some groups, including Crimean Tatars and other FDPs, from this requirement,
and insisted that the language requirement ought to apply to everyone.
The eventual solution was a compromise that kept the language requirement
in the law, while exempting certain categories of people with family origin
from the territory of Ukraine.(31)
After the new citizenship law was adopted and entered into force on 20 May
1997, it opened the way to Ukrainian citizenship for those FDPs who were de
jure stateless and thus could make use of the simplified affiliation procedure
at once, as the requirement to obtain a proof of release from previous citizenship
did not apply to them. However, this
requirement (stemming from Ukraine’s desire to uphold the single citizenship
principle) continued to bar over 80,000 FDPs who held citizenship of other
CIS states from becoming Ukrainian citizens, as material and logistical obstacles
associated with obtaining such certificates were practically insurmountable
for the overwhelming majority of FDPs.
Box 3 below summarizes positions of the government, the Crimean Tatars, and
IOs on the remaining issue—the requirement to obtain a proof of release from
previous citizenship. In particular,
it shows different actors’ opinions as to whether Ukraine could solve the
issue itself (by changing legislation or interpreting existing legislative
provisions in a way that would allow Crimean Tatar FDPs to apply for Ukrainian
citizenship without obtaining documents from other countries where they were
de jure citizens), without depending
on other CIS countries changing their procedures for release from citizenship.
The darkly shaded area shows the policy that was adopted, while lightly
shaded areas show where interests of different groups diverged.
|
Box 3 – Preferences of Actors on How
to Resolve Release from Previous Citizenship Issue |
|
|
Actor |
Policy issue: Can Ukraine resolve the requirement
that release from previous citizenship be documented by changing its
own legislation or by interpreting existing legal provisions differently? |
|
Ukrainian government,
in particular Citizenship Department of the Presidential Administration |
No |
|
Crimean Tatars represented
by Mejlis |
Yes |
|
UNHCR |
Yes, by interpreting
existing legal provisions differently |
|
OSCE |
Yes, by means of introducing
a government order |
|
Council of Europe |
Yes, by interpreting
existing legal provisions differently |
As this box illustrates, the Crimean Tatars wanted the Ukrainian government
to remove the requirement for proof of release from previous citizenship—not
because they were opposed to the single citizenship principle, their leaders
argued, but because the principle, as implemented in the law, had a particularly
adverse effect on them, de facto barring them from obtaining Ukrainian citizenship. The solution proposed by the Crimean Tatars
was to introduce a provision in the citizenship law allowing for the clause
of Article 2 (3) “not being citizens of other states” not to be applied when
an FDP submits a declaration on his/her willingness to be a citizen of Ukraine
and not citizen of the state of his or her current citizenship. The proposal to have the issue resolved by
submission of individual declarations renouncing prior citizenship was an
option proposed not only by the Crimean Tatars, but by some of the IOs as
well.
In a February 1997 letter to the Foreign Minister of
Ukraine, the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities suggested that
all Crimean Tatars
be granted citizenship of Ukraine
provided that they submit an application requesting this accompanied by a
formal declaration of renunciation of the citizenship of the country from
which they had returned to Crimea….In order to respect interests of the states
from which Crimean Tatars falling under such an arrangement have returned,
a list of those who have renounced their citizenship could be dispatched to
the Government concerned. In this
connection, I also note that no state can forbid a person to change his citizenship….It
would even be contrary to the letter and the spirit of the Universal Declaration
[of Human Rights] to make the acquisition of Ukrainian citizenship dependent
upon the determination of another state to agree to and to facilitate renunciation.(32)
In his letter of response, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister
promised that the OSCE proposal “will be thoroughly considered by our experts
and taken into account,” but this proposal was eventually not supported, as
one can see from the provisions of the law finally adopted in April 1997.
The Ukrainian authorities’ stance was that with the
passage of the new citizenship law, Ukraine had done everything in its power
to facilitate as much as possible FDPs’ access to citizenship. If the US$100 fee charged by the Uzbek side
for the certificate of release was a problem, it was not up to Ukraine to
solve this issue. Allowing acquisition of Ukrainian citizenship on the basis
of a declaration renouncing prior citizenship would lead to cases of de
jure dual citizenship, since legally the Ukrainian state cannot make decisions
on termination of Uzbek citizenship, and therefore these proposals were deemed
unacceptable by the government.
After the 1997 citizenship law was adopted, the UNHCR
and the Council of Europe made several suggestions to the government on how
the dilemma of FDPs with foreign citizenship in Ukraine could be solved and
the principle of single citizenship upheld.
One proposal was to adopt an interpretation of the clause in Article
34 (5) (that did not demand a document on release from previous citizenship
in cases when a person is unable to receive such a document “for good reasons
despite one’s control”) whereby lack of funds to pay for the release document
would be interpreted as a good reason beyond a person’s control. Such an interpretation of Article 34 (5) could
have given access to Ukrainian citizenship to those FDPs who were citizens
of Uzbekistan and could not afford to pay the $100 fee set by the Uzbek side
for release from citizenship, while upholding the principle of single citizenship.
The Ukrainian side did not agree to such an interpretation, however,
being unconvinced that inability to pay the fee could be deemed a “good reason
beyond one’s control.”(33)
2. IOs’ Effect
on Legislative Change
This section analyzes the effect IOs had at different
stages and with regard to different aspects of the Ukrainian citizenship legislation
amended in 1997 and 1998, as well as the role they played in influencing practical
implementation of the citizenship policy.
The UNHCR and other IOs became actively involved with the FDP citizenship
problem in Ukraine at approximately the same time as governmental working
groups began drafting amendments to the citizenship law.
The UNHCR provided recommendations to the law drafters, and many of
these were incorporated in the law. Specifically, the UNHCR served as a source
of international expertise, providing
the Ukrainian government information about international legal standards on
citizenship. It funded translations
of international legal documents into Ukrainian for use by the experts in
the Citizenship Department of Presidential Administration and other domestic
experts, and also funded travel to international seminars and conferences
by Ukrainian officials. The first
such trip took place in December 1996, when the draft citizenship law was
under discussion in the parliament, and the UNHCR funded a trip to Geneva
by several members of the sub-committee as well as representatives of the
Presidential Administration. During
this trip, Ukrainian representatives approached the Council of Europe and
the UNHCR, requesting them to conduct expert analysis of the new Ukrainian
citizenship legislation and its compliance with international legal standards.
Such developments must have made the draft Ukrainian law closer to international
standards, of which there was limited knowledge in Ukraine before the involvement
of IOs, not the least because citizenship itself was a new concept for Ukraine,
having become an independent state only in 1991.
There was little domestic expertise, and few international materials
and legal texts were available in Ukrainian.
This demonstrates the particular importance of expert functions performed
by IOs in countries with limited experience and expertise in a given area.
However, the evidence discussed in the previous section
also demonstrates that, on the question of proof of release from prior citizenship,
UNHCR and other IOs have not been able to influence the policy preferences
of the Ukrainian government. The issue
was highly contested domestically and had implications directly bearing on
what was defined by the government as a matter of “national interest”—not
allowing for de facto or de
jure dual citizenship to emerge. However,
with the conclusion of the bilateral Ukrainian-Uzbek agreement, policies were
changed eventually, with the final outcome acceptable to and welcomed by IOs. What does this course of events tell us about the role IOs played?
First, it allows us to conclude that international
pressure is less effective on policy issues that are highly politicized, and
linked to issues of high political importance for the governments involved.
The definition of single citizenship as a matter of “national interest”
and the requirement to obtain proof of release from prior citizenship stemming
from this principle, can be attributed to the Ukrainian government’s insistence
on this requirement and rejection of IOs’ recommendations that, in the view
of the government, could have compromised this principle.
Second, the fact that the UNHCR and other IOs have
nevertheless persisted in their cooperation with the Ukrainian authorities
in search of an acceptable compromise, which was eventually concluded, shows
that flexibility when setting policy objectives was an effective strategy
on the part of the IOs. The Ukrainian
government insisted that only by means of bilateral agreements with other
relevant states could a solution to the release requirement be found, and
the UNHCR, instead of criticizing the Ukrainian authorities for not accepting
the solution it proposed, instead chose to assist the Ukrainian authorities
in concluding such agreements with Uzbekistan and other CIS countries.
When Ukraine and Uzbekistan engaged in negotiations exploring the possibility
of such an agreement, the UNHCR offered its “good offices” for the two sides
during negotiations, but apparently due to the reluctance of the Uzbek side
to “internationalize” the issue, negotiations
remained bilateral. The UNHCR, although
not involved in the negotiations process, followed it closely and took actions
to inform both sides of its position, as did other IOs.
In December 1997 both UNHCR High Commissioner Sadako Ogata and OSCE
High Commissioner on National minorities Max van der Stoel addressed letters
to the Uzbek Foreign Minister requesting that his government simplify citizenship
renunciation procedures for Crimean Tatars who had relocated to Crimea from
Uzbekistan. The UNHCR has also financed
missions of Ukrainian experts who traveled to Uzbekistan to negotiate with
their Uzbek counterparts, and later financed similar trips to other CIS countries
where a number of FDPs living in Ukraine still had citizenship.
Third, even though on the issue of release from previous
citizenship IOs have not succeeded in having the Ukrainian government accept
their initial proposals, it can be said that the IOs have nevertheless had
an effect by way of “closing” certain policy alternatives for the government. The UNHCR has shown flexibility when some of
its policy recommendations have been rejected, and, not being directly involved
in the Ukrainian-Uzbek negotiations process, did not make specific recommendations
on what solution the two countries should adopt. However, the UNHCR and other involved IOs made
it clear what outcomes were not
acceptable. Most notably, they made
it clear to the Ukrainian government that a situation whereby applicants had
to pay a US$100 fee and had to travel from Crimea to the Uzbek embassy in
Kiev was not acceptable, since it de
facto prevented FDP applicants from being able to apply for citizenship
at all, and that therefore changes were necessary.
How the issue was to be resolved otherwise and what procedures were
to be applied were left to the competence of the two governments involved.
3. IOs’ Effect
on Interpretation of Legal Provisions and Implementation of New Regulations
Although changes in the law are a very important element
of any overall policy changes, changing the letter of the law is not sufficient
to bring about results desired in practical terms, especially in a country
where the rule of law is only being developed, and policy changes on paper
do not automatically translate into policy changes in practice. Therefore, this section will analyze IOs’ impact
on the interpretation of existing legal provisions by the Ukrainian authorities,
and on the practical implementation of new citizenship policies. The evidence that will be laid out below suggests
that IOs have been most influential in this realm, and this influence has been a critical factor that has allowed statelessness
in Ukraine to be eliminated, and the overall number of non-citizens among
FDPs to be substantially reduced.
·
Effect on interpretation
With regard to policy interpretation, there have been many instances
when the UNHCR has identified and successfully lobbied the authorities to
change interpretations of various laws and government orders in a manner that
would be more advantageous to FDPs applying for Ukrainian citizenship.
One example was the simplified citizenship affiliation procedure established
in the 1997 citizenship law applied to those who could document their or their
ancestor’s origin in Ukraine. The
law did not specify what documents would be considered as acceptable proofs
of origin, which was left to be specified in government interpretations. The March 1998 instruction of the Ministry
of Interior on processing citizenship applications excluded the passport as
a document certifying an applicant’s place of birth. Instead, a birth certificate or archival documents were to be provided.
This provision, if implemented, would have had a significantly adverse
effect on descendants of FDPs who needed to document that their parents or
grandparents had been born in Crimea, since archival records in Crimea have
been incomplete, missing, or otherwise difficult to obtain.
The UNHCR took up this issue with the Ministry of Interior, and was
successful. Although the instruction itself has not been
changed, the Ministry issued orders to local authorities in Crimea to continue
accepting passports as a proof of origin from Ukraine. Several months later, the UNHCR successfully
advocated for an even more simplified procedure whereby local migration services
in Crimea began issuing a standard form confirming applicants’ FDP status,
and thus origin from Ukraine.
Among other examples of UNHCR’s successful direct impact
on how legal provisions were interpreted was the waiving of all fees related
to the citizenship affiliation procedure by the Ukrainian authorities.
The Ukrainian authorities also followed UNHCR recommendations to establish
a procedure whereby an administrative conclusion stating the individual’s
eligibility for Ukrainian citizenship is drafted before the renunciation application
is forwarded to the Uzbek authorities in order to avoid cases of interim statelessness
in the period between one’s release from Uzbek and affiliation to Ukrainian
citizenship.
·
Effect on implementation
With regard to practical implementation of the new,
simplified citizenship procedures established in the 1997 and 1998 legal acts,
the UNHCR has been instrumental in making the spirit and the letter of the
law a reality, and can undoubtedly take credit for the fact that tens of thousands
of FDPs in Crimea now hold Ukrainian passports. Figures 4 and 6 in the Appendices illustrate that since mid-1997
thousands of FDPs and their descendants have received Ukrainian passports,
in comparison with less than 300 in years prior to 1997. UNHCR’s impact on citizenship policy implementation has been many-fold,
and several successful strategies can be identified.
First, on-the-ground monitoring through its field office,
local NGO counterparts, and a consultancy project enabled the UNHCR to identify
incorrect interpretations or applications of the legislation by officials
at the local level, which in turn permitted timely interventions by UNHCR
with central authorities and by those authorities with local officials to
correct local policies. By monitoring
activities of authorities at the local level, the UNHCR has been acting as a “fire alarm,” identifying
sub-standard practices and alerting central government authorities about it.
For example, the UNHCR has identified that, in contradiction to the
citizenship law, authorities in Crimea often refused to accept citizenship
applications from those FDPs who lived in substandard housing and did not
have an official propiska(36)
registration. According to the law, citizenship applications are to be accepted
by relevant Ministry of Interior bodies at places of applicants’ residence.
Some OVIRs (Departments of Visas and Registrations, the Ministry of
Interior bodies charged with processing applications), interpreting residence
as propiska, had refused to accept applications from people who did not
have a propiska, for example those
living in dormitories. The UNHCR brought
this to the attention of the central authorities, which led to the central
authority instructing local offices on the proper interpretation of the law.
Second, monitoring at the micro-level also enabled
the UNHCR to identify precise needs of local government offices on which successful
policy implementation depended, and thus to plan targeted assistance.
For example, anticipating a sharp increase in the rate of applications
for citizenship after the Ukrainian-Uzbek agreement was signed in August 1998,
and being aware that organs accepting and processing applications might not
have sufficient capacity to process all new applications (the rate of applications
was expected to sky-rocket from several dozen a year to 600-1,000 a month),
the UNHCR offered to finance the creation of additional positions at the Crimean
OVIRs, and also provided substantial material assistance such as office equipment,
filing cabinets, and cars to enable staff to travel to remote settlements
to collect applications.
Scholars of international institutions have pointed
out that “one of the most fundamental ways in which international institutions
can change state behavior is by substituting for domestic practices.”(37) This has indeed been the case with the UNHCR in Ukraine,
which has often been fulfilling functions traditionally performed by state
institutions, and even contributing to state-building. The UNHCR has monitored implementation of national
legislation by local authorities, financed and produced instructions, forms,
and texts of the laws and by-laws, and planned and implemented a massive awareness
campaign in the media to alert FDPs in Crimea about changes in citizenship
procedures and the importance of becoming Ukrainian citizens.
All of these functions are traditionally performed
by the state rather than a foreign institution. UNHCR’s awareness campaign aimed at raising the consciousness of
FDPs about the importance of citizenship can furthermore be regarded as a
de facto state-building measure. With citizenship being a new concept for residents
of the post-Soviet states, the importance of citizenship has been commonly
underestimated, and the whole concept ill understood. As sociological research has revealed, many
FDPs were not even aware that they were not Ukrainian citizens, wrongly believing
that residency and citizenship were the same. By launching a massive awareness campaign in
the media and through NGO counterparts, the UNHCR assisted in raising civic
consciousness and “creating” many thousands of Ukrainian citizens.
Faced with all this evidence one may wonder why the
Ukrainian government was so receptive to these activities of IOs? Why did
it allow them to take on many functions traditionally performed by domestic
actors and institutions? Why have the authorities often proved to be willing
to re-consider their policies on issues such as implementation of existing
laws and interpretation of provisions of the law and by-laws? As one scholar
put it in a recent article on the effect of supranational experts, “why should
governments, with millions of diverse and highly trained professional employees,
massive information-gathering capacity, and long-standing experience with
international negotiations at their disposal, ever require the services of a handful of supranational entrepreneurs
to generate and disseminate useful information and ideas?”(38)
Under these conditions, the government had much to gain from information
and resources offered by the IOs without which, even if there was a will to
have new laws implemented, it might not have been possible because of material,
informational, and coordination constraints. The material and technical assistance IOs can
offer are likely to be incentives in any setting, but they are particularly
powerful incentives in an environment of economic crisis where state resources
are severely limited. It can be mentioned
that as a result of UNHCR’s material assistance, the Citizenship Department
has become the only department in the Presidential Administration fully fitted
with computers and office equipment.
However, as this paper has demonstrated, when the issues in question are highly
politicized and divisive domestically, the material and other incentives that
IOs can offer to bring about policy changes usually do not outweigh considerations
stemming from concerns about possible negative domestic political consequences.
V. Conclusions and Policy Recommendations
Evidence presented in this paper illustrates that the UNHCR and other international organizations had a significant effect on different aspects of Ukrainian citizenship policy, and that, most likely, without their involvement the FDPs’ citizenship and statelessness problems would not have been solved. More specifically, evidence from the Ukrainian case supports the argument that the IOs have been most effective in influencing the interpretation and implementation of existing legal provisions, rather than policy formation. Furthermore, with regard to policy formation, IOs’ effectiveness appears to be determined by the level of politicization of the given policy issue, with IOs’ influence being weakest on more politicized questions. Analysts and policy makers interested in international influences on transition countries can draw several lessons from the case analyzed in this project.
Policy Recommendations
IOs should pursue a flexible, step-by-step strategy and periodically make
adjustments to policy aims.
As demonstrated by this research, the eventual solution of FDP citizenship problems in Ukraine was not a smooth process, but rather one of slow adjustments by all the parties involved in relation to their “ideal” policy preferences, and moves toward each other in search of a compromise acceptable to all. This relates not only to the Ukrainian government and Crimean Tatar leaders, but also to the IOs, which had to be able to respond to the situation when many of their proposals and recommendations were not initially accepted. The decision of the UNHCR to adjust its aims in such a way that the desirable practical outcome would still be eventually achieved by designing different ways to achieve it was an important and effective strategy.
Such an approach also turned a potential “winner/loser” situation into an “all winners” one. Interestingly enough, different Ukrainian actors are now quick to argue that it was thanks to them that the FDP citizenship problem in Ukraine was finally solved: Crimean Tatar leaders emphasize the importance of their protest actions and government lobbying efforts, government officials credit their good will and legal skills in drafting successful policy proposals, and Members of Parliament from specialized subcommittees also claim credit for their attention to the problem and initiation of legal amendments. The UNHCR, emphasizing its own role, does not forget to express appreciation for the Ukrainian government’s good will, while the authorities express their appreciation of the UNHCR’s material and expert assistance. Pursuit of a step-by-step policy and adjustments of specific policy objectives on the part of IOs have enabled all parties involved, including domestic actors, who used to hold very different views on the nature of the problem and possible solutions, to reach a compromise. The compromise, perhaps sub-optimal from each party’s initial “ideal point,” has nevertheless proved acceptable to all. In this regard, another, related, lesson can be drawn:
In the transition environment, the success or failure of IOs’ policies
are not final, but can change rapidly. Policy
decisions are more often a product of short-term political considerations
than well-established institutional procedures and rules.
This reality sets transition countries apart from established democracies, and necessitates adjustment of the approaches and strategies IOs adopt when seeking to influence domestic policies. As illustrated in this paper, informal contacts and information exchanges at settings such as seminars, round-tables, and so forth, are often more effective than such “traditional” lobbying methods as formal letter writing and regular periodic meetings. In a transition environment with unstable formal rules, informal rules and practices are of equal if not greater importance than formal ones. The IO’s ability to understand and successfully navigate the world of informal policy-making rules and influence networks can make them very effective players. However, informal rules and policy-making mechanisms are not as stable as formal rules, and policies may be reversed more easily for short-term political considerations—a reality that can have both negative and positive consequences for IOs. This leads to another potential lesson:
Micro-level monitoring and situation assessment are important in allowing
IOs to formulate timely and effective policy aims, and to create effective
strategies responsive to micro- and macro-level needs.
A key factor accounting for the overall success of the UNHCR’s activities in Ukraine analyzed in this paper has been the UNHCR’s consistent involvement at a micro-level, which has enabled the organization to identify policies that have been sub-optimal or turned out to have a sub-optimal effect in practice, and therefore to formulate objectives that were well-informed in terms of current local needs, and effective and feasible ways of bringing about desired changes. The importance of micro-level presence and monitoring—a critical factor contributing to the UNHCR’s overall success in the sphere of Ukrainian citizenship policy—has larger implications for the effectiveness of external influences generally. An organization or another foreign actor operating in a different manner, that is, without a permanent local presence that permits monitoring the situation as it changes, assessing current needs and challenges, and formulating policies accordingly, may not be as effective as the UNHCR in Ukraine has been. Furthermore, local presence is also an effective way to monitor how material assistance is being used, and thus to minimize the danger of its misuse—a problem many international donors face.
NOTES
[1] This study was supported by
a generous grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
2 The author is a Ph.D. candidate in the
Department of Government, Harvard University and a Graduate Student Associate
at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs.
3 Verkhovna Rada Ukrainy, Zakon Ukrainy ‘Pro hromadianstvo Ukrainy,’
no. 1636-XII, (8 October 1991); Vidomosti
Verkhovnoi Rady Ukrainy, no. 50, 701.
4 Deportation and Crimean Tatars’
struggle for the right to return during the Soviet period is outside the scope
of this paper. For detailed discussion
of these subjects see: Edward Allworth, ed., Tatars of the Crimea: Their Struggle for Survival. Original Studies
from North America, Unofficial and Official Documents from Czarist and Soviet
Sources, Central Asia Book Series
(Durham: Duke University Press, 1988); Edward Allworth, ed., The Tatars of the Crimea: Return to the
Homeland. Studies and Documents (Durham: Duke University Press, 1998); Oleh
Bazhan and Yurii Danyliuk, ed., Krymski
tatary, 1944-1994 rr.: statti, dokumenty, svidchennia ochevydtsiv (Kiev:
Ridnyi krai, 1995); Robert Conquest, The
Nation Killers: the Soviet Deportation of Nationalities (London: Macmillan,
1970); Maria Drohobycky, ed., Crimea:
Dynamics, Challenges and Prospects (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield,
1995); Oleg Gabrielian et al., Krymskie
repatrianty: deportatsia, vozvrashchenie i obustroistvo (Simferopol:
Izdatelskii dom “Amena,” 1998); Oleg Gabrielian and Vadim Petrov, Krym--deportirovannye
grazhdane--vozvrashchenie, obustroistvo, sotsialnaia adaptatsiia
(Simferopol: Izdatelskii dom “Amena,” 1997); Mikhail Guboglo and Svetlana
Chervonnaia, Krymskotatarskoe
natsionalnoe dvizhenie, 4. V. (Moskva: Rossiiskaia akademiia nauk, Tsentr
po izucheniiu mezhnatsionalnykh otnoshenii. Institut etnologii i antropologii
im. N.N. Miklukho-Maklaia, 1992); Open Society Institute, Crimean Tatars: Repatriation and Conflict Prevention (New York: The
Open Society Institute, 1996); Otto Pohl, The
Stalinist Penal System: a Statistical History of Soviet Repression and Terror,
1930-1953 (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1997); Mykola Shulha, ed., Problemy mihratsii ta povernennia
deportovanykh v Ukrainu: materialy mizhnarodnoho sympoziuma 14-15 bereznia 1997
roku (Kiev: Freedom House, 1997).
5 Ukrainian Ministry of Interior data as
quoted in Krymskaia Gazeta (26
November 1997).
6 Iryna Pribytkova, Examination of the Citizenship Issue on the Return and Reintegration of
the Formerly Deported Peoples in Crimea (Kiev: UNHCR, 1998).
7 “Law of the Republic of Uzbekistan on
Citizenship of the Republic of Uzbekistan” reprinted in IOM, Sbornik zakonodatelnykh aktov gosudarstv SNG
i Baltii po voprosam migratsii, grazhdanstva i sviazannym s nimi aspektami
(International Organization for Migration, 1995), 372-84. There has been no
precedent of an Uzbek citizen in Ukraine losing his Uzbek citizenship under
this provision of the Uzbek citizenship law, however.
8 Amended citizenship law from 16 April
1997. Verkhovna Rada Ukrainy, Zakon
Ukrainy ‘Pro hromadianstvo Ukrainy’, no. 210-97BP (16 April 1997); Vidomosti Verkhovnoi Rady Ukrainy, no.
23, 169.
9 As early as 1976, Peter Katzenstein
called for ending this division. See
Peter Katzenstein, “International Relations and Domestic Political Structures:
Foreign Economic Policies of Advanced Industrial States,” International Organization 30, no. 1 (1976).
10 See, for example, Robert Bates, Open-Economy Politics: The Political Economy
of the World Coffee Trade (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997);
Katzenstein, “International Relations and Domestic Political Structures”; Helen
Milner, Interests, Institutions, and
Information: Domestic Politics and International Relations (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1997); Helen Milner, “Rationalizing Politics: The
Emerging Synthesis of International,
American, and Comparative Politics,” International
Organization 52, no. 2 (1998).
11 For more detailed discussion of
socio-economic and political difficulties experienced by the returning FDPs
see, for example, Allworth, ed., The
Tatars of the Crimea: Return to the Homeland. Studies and Documents;
Drohobycky, ed., Crimea: Dynamics,
Challenges and Prospects; Gabrielian et al., Krymskie repatrianty: deportatsia, vozvrashchenie i obustroistvo;
Guboglo and Chervonnaia, Krymskotatarskoe
natsionalnoe dvizhenie; Open Society Institute, Crimean Tatars: Repatriation and Conflict Prevention.
12 Ukrainian government statistics cited
in Committee on Migration, Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly, Refugees
and Demography. Repatriation and
Integration of the Tatars of Crimea, no. 8655 (18 February 2000), available
from http://stars.coe.fr/doc00/EDOC8655.htm. Also see Remzi Iliasov, “Analiz
sotsialno-ekonomichnoho stanovyscha krymskotatarskoho narodu v Krymu,” in Sotialno-Ekonomichni aspekty intehratsii
krymskykh tatar. Materialy ‘kruhloho stoly.’ 17 bereznia 1999 roku (Kiev:
Ukrainsky Nezalezhny Tsentr Politychnykh Doslidzhen, 1999), 51.
13 Following elections on 28 March 1998,
the Communists became the largest group in the current Crimean parliament with
32 out of 91 deputies elected that day
(election results as reported in Krymskoie
Vremia, 30 April 1998), and 34 out of 48 (or 71 percent) of the deputies
elected to the Simferopol city soviet (election results in Krymskoie Vremia, 25 April 1998). During the March 1998 Ukrainian
parliamentary elections, the Communist party received 25 percent of the votes
on the party list vote in Ukraine overall, while in Crimea it got 39 percent.
(Party list voting results as listed at the Central Electoral Commission of
Ukraine’s web site at http://195.230.157.53:8082/index.htm).
Finally, during the November 1999 Ukrainian presidential elections, in Crimea
Communist candidate Petro Symonenko came in first with 38 percent of the votes
in the first round (the second highest vote for the Communist party candidate
in Ukraine’s 27 regions), and beat incumbent president Leonid Kuchma in the
second round 51 percent to 44 percent (1999 Presidential election results
listed at the Central Electoral Commission of Ukraine’s web site at http://195.230.157.53:8082/vp1i/owa/webproc0).
14 This describes the position of the
majority of the Crimean Tatars and their leadership represented by the Mejlis
(a 33-member permanent representative body elected by the Kurultai—a Crimean Tatar national congress). A notable exception to this position is the
NDKT (National Movement of the Crimean Tatars), a Crimean Tatar organization
opposed to Mejlis/Kurultai. NDKT and Mejlis leaders were at the roots of the
Crimean Tatar movement in the 1960s, but they parted ways in the late
1980s. During the 1994 elections to the
Crimean Parliament, on the Crimean Tatar list NDKT received only 5 percent of
the Crimean Tatar votes, while Mejlis received 95 percent. NDKT’s influence has declined following the
murder of its leader Yuri Osmanov in 1993.
The NDKT’s stated political orientation is very different from that of
Mejlis/Kurultai—NDKT leaders regret the disappearance of the Soviet Union,
support the creation of a “Slavo-Turkic” Union in its place, and therefore are
very critical of Mejlis’ cooperation with the pro-Ukrainian forces. NDKT has called Ukraine’s rule over Crimea
“occupational,” and has stressed the importance of working with the existing
Crimean authorities and pro-Russian forces in Crimea. For more on the creation
of and differences between Mejlis/Kurultai and the NDKT see, for example,
Guboglo and Chervonnaia, Krymskotatarskoe
natsionalnoe dvizhenie; Susan Stewart, The
Tatar Dimension, RFE/RL Research
Report 3, no. 19 (1994); Andrew Wilson, “Politics In And Around Crimea: a
Difficult Homecoming,” in Allworth, The
Tatars of the Crimea, 283-86.
15 For illustrative voting data See
Oxana Shevel, “Crimean Tatars in Ukraine: The Politics of Inclusion and
Exclusion” Analysis of Current Events
12, no. 1-2 (2000).
16 Among the main political demands
voiced by the Crimean Tatars are a need for a legal mechanism to guarantee
Crimean Tatar representation in Crimean and Ukrainian organs of power; official
recognition of the Crimean Tatar Mejlis; official recognition of Crimean Tatars
as an indigenous people of Crimea and Ukraine rather than a national minority;
recognition of the Crimean Tatar language as one of the official languages in
Crimea; and establishment of national-territorial autonomy in Crimea in place
of the current territorial one. Demands
detailed in the “Appeal of the Crimean Tatars addressed to the President of
Ukraine, Peoples Deputies of Ukraine, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights,
and the OSCE” (Avdet, 13 January
1997). The appeal has been signed by
over 100,000 Crimean Tatars over 18 years of age, according to Mustafa Jemilev,
Chairman of the Crimean Tatar Mejlis. (Avdet, 24 November 1998). For analysis of these political demands and
conflicting domestic political interests surrounding them, see Oxana Shevel,
“Crimean Tatars and the Ukrainian State:
the Challenge of Politics, the Use of Law, and the Meaning of Rhetoric”
(paper presented at the Fifth Annual World Convention of the American
Association for the Study of Nationalities, New York, NY, 13-15 April 2000) and
Shevel, “Crimean Tatars in Ukraine: The Politics of Inclusion and Exclusion.”
17 Indeed, as early as September 1992,
the Mejlis issued a resolution recommending that all Crimean Tatars affiliate
to Ukrainian citizenship under procedures specified in Ukrainian citizenship
legislation (Mejlis’ resolution dated 27 September 1992, reprinted in Guboglo
and Chervonnaia, Krymskotatarskoe
natsionalnoe dvizhenie. 3, 51.
18 Prezydent Ukrainy, Ukaz Prezydenta Ukrainy pro poriadok
rozhliadu pytan, zviazanykh z hromadianstvom Ukrainy, no. 196, (31 March
1992).
19
This instruction was referred to and cancelled by the Ministry of
Interior of Ukraine. Instruktsia pro
poriadok pryiniattia, rozhliadu ta prokhodzhennia v organakh vnutrishnikh sprav
Ukrainy klopotan, zaiav, inshykh documentiv z pytan hromadianstva Ukrainy,
Ministry of Interior document no. 211, registered at the Ministry of Justice on
8 May 1998 under the number 292/2732 (30 March 1998).
20 This paragraph was added to the law
on 28 January 1993 by Law no. 2949-12 Verkhovna Rada Ukrainy. Zakon pro vensennia zmin i dopovnen do
Zakonu Ukrainy ‘Pro hromadianstvo’, no. 2949-XII (28 January 1993); Vidomosti Verkhovnoi Rady Ukrainy, no.
14, 121.
21 Fera Abkhairova, “Legko-li stat
grazhdaninom Ukrainy?” Grazhdanin, 1,
no. 4 (1997). The fees for documents convert to approximately US$29, at a time
when the average monthly wage was about US$53.
24 See verbatim report of the
parliamentary discussion of the citizenship law. First reading: Verkhovna Rada Ukrainy, “Zakon Ukrainy pro
hromadianstvo Ukrainy - pershe chytannia,” in Bulletin # 7 (Kiev: Verkhovna Rada Ukrainy, 1991). Second reading: Verkhovna Rada Ukrainy,
“Zakon Ukrainy pro hromadianstvo Ukrainy - druhe chytannia,” in Bulletin # 18 (Kiev: Verkhovna Rada
Ukrainy, 1991).
25 Volodymyr Khandogii, “Dvostoronni
uhody, scho spriamovani na vyrishennia pytan’ hromadianstva,” in Bizhentsi ta mihratsia: Ukrainskyi chasopys
prava i polityky 1, no. 2 (1997): 16-17.
26 IOM, Sbornik zakonodatelnykh aktov gosudarstv SNG i Baltii po voprosam
migratsii, grazhdanstva i sviazannym s nimi aspektami: 280-95.
27 Kiev, June 1999. The official wished to remain anonymous.
28 OSCE, “The OSCE Mission to Ukraine,”
(10 August 1998). Available from http://www.osce.org/e/docs/survey/ukraine.htm.
29 OSCE High Commissioner on National
Minorities, “Letter to Hennady Udovenko, Minister of Foreign Affairs of
Ukraine, and the letter of reply,” Prague OSCE Documentation Center reference
number REF.HC/10/95 (12 October 1995). Available from http://www.osce.org/inst/hcnm/recomm/ukraine/1995/27hc105.html.
30 Mejlis Krymskotatarskogo naroda, Kratkaia khronika deiatelnosti Mejlisa
krymskotatarskogo naroda. Iiul 1991 - iiun 1996 (Simferopol: 1996).
31 It is important to note that the
exception—worded as “persons who were born or resided permanently on the
territory of Ukraine, as well as their descendants (children,
grandchildren)”—see Table 1—was territorially, not ethnically, based. Emphasizing one’s origin from the territory
of Ukraine rather than one’s Ukrainian ethnicity made the provision more
neutral and more inclusive, since it applied to groups such as Crimean Tatars
who were not of Ukrainian ethnic origin, but had links to Ukrainian territory.
32 OSCE High Commissioner on National
Minorities, “Letter to Hennady Udovenko, Minister of Foreign Affairs of
Ukraine, and the letter of reply,” Prague OSCE Documentation Center reference
and number REF.HC/4/97, (14 February 1997). Available from http://www.osce.org/inst/hcnm/recomm/ukraine/1997/44hc47.html.
33 Interpretations of the clause on what
shall and shall not be considered good reasons beyond one’s control are
reflected in Appendix 9 of the March 1998 Ministry of Interior Order on
processing applications related to citizenship of Ukraine. Ministry of Interior
of Ukraine, Instruktsia pro poriadok
pryiniattia, rozhliadu ta prokhodzhennia v organakh vnutrishnikh sprav Ukrainy
klopotan, zaiav, inshykh documentiv z pytan hromadianstva Ukrainy.
34 Khandogii, “Dvostoronni uhody, scho
spriamovani na vyrishennia pytan’ hromadianstva,” 19.
35 The Ukrainian-Uzbek agreement and the
administrative decrees detailing the mechanism of its realization are published
in Viktor Andrienko, ed., Domovlennist
mizh Ukrainoiu ta Respublikoiu Uzbekistan schchodo spivrobitnytstva u
vyrishenni pytan hromadianstva deportovannykh osib ta yikhnikh nashchadkiv
(Kiev: UNHCR, 1999): 176-202.
36 The propiska is a stamp in one’s internal passport that is placed by
the authorities and which specifies where the person legally resides and is
registered. It is in turn related to
where one can get social assistance, go to school, etc.
37 Lisa Martin and Beth Simmons, “Theoretical
and Empirical Studies of International Institutions” International Organization 52, no. 4 (1998): 747-48.
38 Andrew Moravcsik, “A New Statecraft.
Supranational Entrepreneurs and International Cooperation” International Organization 53, no. 2 (1999): 273.