[lbo-talk] On the dangers of faux statehood

Wendy Lyon wendy.lyon at gmail.com
Sat Jul 25 01:48:12 PDT 2015


Any drama is usually the responsibility of the traveller to deal with. Just because a country has given someone a travel document (or a passport, for that matter) doesn't mean they're going to interfere with another country's decision to refuse the person entry. It may happen in particularly exceptional cases, but not as a general rule.

Travel documents that are issued on the basis of statelessness don't confer any rights on the person other than the right to travel, and that's still subject to the requirements of the destination country. So they'll still need a visa to enter a third country. If they get in, they don't have a right to consular assistance from the country that issued the travel document. It would be different if these were travel documents issued on the basis of refugee status, but that doesn't seem to be the case (and it would be a serious breach of international and European law if it was).


> On 24 Jul 2015, at 21:56, Joseph Catron <jncatron at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Huh. Maybe I'm confused about the distinctions, not sure.
>
> What I am sure of, though, is that I'd much rather try going to some third
> country with any piece of official-looking paper Sweden cares to give me
> than a Palestinian passport.
>
> In the event of some drama, it will then be the responsibility of the Swedish
> government, not the PA, to deal with it, yes?
>
>> On Sat, Jul 25, 2015 at 3:34 AM, Wendy Lyon <wendy.lyon at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>> On 24 Jul 2015, at 20:17, Joseph Catron <jncatron at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Sorry, "passports" vs. "travel documents" is one of those
>> American/European
>>> things. For us, they're the same, at least as I've always heard the
>> terms.
>>> Over there, I know "passport" often means "citizenship."
>>
>> No, they totally aren't the same thing. A passport is a passport - it's
>> not synonymous with citizenship, though usually you have to be a citizen of
>> a country to get its passport. A travel document is a document issued to
>> someone who needs to travel internationally but is unable to obtain a
>> passport. It may be that the terms are used interchangeably in common
>> parlance in parts of the US, but the State Department distinguishes them
>> and quite certainly so does the Swedish government.
>>
>> The passport index you linked to only ranks passports, not travel
>> documents. A Swedish travel document would not have the same utility as a
>> Swedish passport.
>>
>> ___________________________________
>> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>
>
>
> --
> "Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen
> lytlað."
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list