The Romani claim to non-territorial nationhood : taking legitimacy-based claims seriously in international law

Abstract

This thesis does not, however, take Catholics or English Asians as its focus, but the most disadvantaged and marginalised group in Europe: the Roma. The daily discrimination and violence Roma face in Europe and beyond is well-documented. It is not, however, the subject of consideration here. Rather, it is the claim of the Romani movement that the globally scattered groups of Roma constitute a nonterritorial nation that is the subject of this thesis. I first encountered the claim to nonterritorial nationhood in a document submitted as part of the Romani delegation to the 2001 World Conference Against Racism. The incongruence of this claim with the centrality of territory to political organisation and, consequently, to international law was striking. Yet, enquires made with my colleagues and with a wider circle of Romani leaders about the nature of this claim elicited confusing answers. This thesis project began, therefore, with the simple aim of understanding the claim itself: what was being asked for? How was a non-territorial nation to be understood? What was the claim intended to gain for those in whose name it was being made? In addition to questions internal to the nature of this particular claim, the second aim of this research was to take an external perspective. I wanted to understand how such a claim would be received: to whom was the claim being made? What consequences flowed, or could flow, from the status of being a non-territorial nation?