Master thesis : "Procedural Invisibility: How Italy's Administrative and Judicial Systems Fail Stateless Individuals"

Abstract

This thesis examines the extent to which Italy’s administrative and judicial procedures undermine the recognition of stateless individuals and obstruct their access to essential services, despite the country’s binding obligations under the 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons and the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. It addresses the central paradox of Italy’s statelessness regime: the coexistence of formal treaty ratification with systemic non-implementation. Through a dual-lens methodology combining critical discourse analysis of legal and administrative texts with policy process tracing of reform efforts, the study demonstrates how symbolic ratification, bureaucratic neutralisation of rights, and judicial complicity interact to produce procedural invisibility. The empirical analysis draws on ministerial circulars, judicial decisions, FOIA-obtained policy documents, and NGO field reports, with a particular focus on Roma communities as a diagnostic population. The findings reveal that Italy’s procedural framework functions as a calibrated system of exclusion, in which interlocking administrative and judicial barriers perpetuate statelessness and restrict access to fundamental rights. Administrative requirements such as proof of lawful residence, consular attestations, and digital authentication operate as near-insurmountable evidentiary hurdles, while judicial remedies are undermined by prohibitive costs, inconsistent jurisprudence, and detention practices that violate international and EU law. Roma communities experience this regime with particular severity through spatial segregation, generational statelessness, and targeted policy sabotage, illustrating how exclusion is manufactured rather than incidental.