Centring the Lived Experience of Stateless People in Legal Education

June 2024

In this blog, Katie Robertson, Director of the Stateless Legal Clinic at the University of Melbourne, discusses the development of a relatively new Australian legal service for stateless people, the Stateless Legal Clinic. In addition to providing legal education and aid to stateless children in their application for Australian citizenship, the Clinic offers law students the ability to learn about statelessness and gain practical legal experience through direct work on legal matters with stateless clients. The Clinic aims to equip law students with a critical understanding of the importance of respecting and championing the lived experience of the clients they seek to support. Students who themselves have lived experience of statelessness are supported to develop as the rightful leaders of advocacy in the field, and direct engagement with stateless people is prioritised throughout the course. By drawing on these techniques, the Stateless Legal Clinic aims to challenge traditional conceptions of ‘knowledge’ in a law school setting, instilling in future lawyers and advocates the importance of empowering those with lived experience.

In view of the above, the Australian Stateless Legal Clinic is a unique service providing legal education and aid to eligible stateless children in their application for Australian citizenship. It also provides law students at the University of Melbourne with the opportunity to gain practical legal experience and engage in experiential learning through a clinical legal education elective subject offered within the Juris Doctor (JD) degree. Critically, it challenges law students to reconceptualise doctrinal understandings of statelessness through a lens of lived experience.

Little is understood about statelessness in Australia, and significant gaps exist in the protection of stateless people. In the absence of a specific visa category or other pathway to permanency for stateless people in Australia, many are left with the only option of seeking protection through an increasingly limited domestic refugee law framework, which seeks to punish and deter stateless refugees who arrived in Australia seeking asylum by boat.

Significantly, despite not providing for jus soli (or birthright) citizenship, Australian law does provide the ability for stateless children born in its territory to apply for citizenship. The problem is that few stateless families are aware of this entitlement to citizenship, and until recently, there was very limited legal support available to assist children through the application process.

Having previously identified a critical gap in accessible legal services for stateless children through vocational experience and research with my colleague Sarah Dale at the Refugee Advice Casework Service, in 2021, we conceptualised a novel legal subject: the Stateless Legal Clinic, situating clinical legal education within the relatively new and emerging discipline of ‘statelessness studies.’

While the course provides students with a base understanding of ‘statelessness law’ through doctrinal analysis and theory, it aims to challenge traditional conceptions of ‘knowledge’ within a university setting by impressing on students the essential importance of lived, as opposed to just ‘learnt’ knowledge. Significant time in the course is dedicated to training students to be ‘human’ lawyers, equipping them with the practical skills needed to meaningfully engage with stateless clients, with the aim of empowering stateless people in the legal process to feel respected and heard.

Throughout the course, students develop an acute understanding of the value of their clients’ lived knowledge of statelessness. Staff and students work closely with Clinic Ambassador Fadi Chalouhy on the curriculum development and implementation of the program. Fadi’s engagement in the Clinic is informed by his experience of growing up stateless in Lebanon, an experience he lived but struggled to identify in the way conceptualized by international legal doctrine or academia, something shared by other stateless people but often overlooked in traditional discourse on the issue.

The chance to work alongside, meet with and learn from people directly impacted by statelessness, including Fadi and the families the Clinic works with, provides students with a powerful learning experience beyond any that can be offered by a textbook. As stated by one former Clinic student -

‘Interning at the Stateless Children Legal Clinic has been an experience unparalleled with anything else in my three years at law school. The opportunity to engage first-hand with clients has equipped me with a wealth of practical legal skills, and provided me with humbling insights into the challenges faced by stateless persons in Australia.’

The Clinic also prioritises enrolment placements for students who have lived experience of statelessness in their family, recognising their potential to drive advocacy on this issue as future leaders. These students bring a wealth of insights to class discussions on the issue of statelessness beyond the confines of traditional academic pedagogy and speak proudly of the personal motivations they bring to working with stateless families in the community. As stated by 2023 Clinic student Hanna -

‘Growing up, I have always been around the idea of statelessness – and the many implications that such a label entails… Applying for a position with the Stateless Legal Clinic has thus been deeply driven by my lived experiences and interests.’

The historical failure of law schools to complement the focus on the skills of legal analysis with effective support for developing students’ ethical and social skills has been well documented, however, little has been done to meaningfully address this in the Australian context. Inherent to teaching law students the essential skills to meaningfully engage with and empower their clients is understanding the critical importance of respecting lived experience. Central to this is creating the space and support systems for students who themselves have lived experience of statelessness to develop as the rightful leaders of advocacy in the field, as well as embedding direct interaction with stateless people within the curriculum. By drawing on these techniques, the Stateless Legal Clinic aims to challenge traditional conceptions of ‘knowledge’ in a law school setting and instil in future lawyers and advocates the importance of empowering those with lived experience.

_{Image by Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash}