Thomas Mcgee

University of Melbourne | MSD · Melbourne Law School

Kurds constitute a trans-border population and the world’s largest non-state nation. Conceptually, as well as empirically, they have long challenged the boundaries of the Middle East’s nation-state system. Due to recent developments in Syria, the country’s (stateless) Kurds find themselves at a double historic juncture. Firstly, some non-citizen Ku...

Brutality and sexual violence perpetrated by the Islamic State (IS) group against women and girls held in captivity have left traumatic effects on survivors and their communities. In this context, the German federal state of Baden-Württemberg launched a novel 'Special Quota' Humanitarian Admissions Programme to receive one thousand vulnerable women...

This article compares humanitarian operations associated with Turkish state and pro-Kurdish movement actors in response to the large cross-border displacement of Kurdish-Syrians into Turkey from the September 2014 Kobani crisis. Analysis draws on actor mapping methodologies and fieldwork conducted in the Kurdish-majority town of Suruc in southern T...

This chapter presents a case study of the housing, land and property (HLP) situation for local and displaced persons in the Syrian region of Afrin since the Turkish-led ‘Operation Olive Branch’ was launched in January 2018. HLP rights violations are described in interviews that provide nuanced accounts of the roles and engagement of different actor...

This paper provides a case study update on the situation of stateless persons – specifically ajanib and maktumeen Kurds from Syria – and focuses on the forced displacement from their country of origin. It considers the protection regime in place for the many stateless Syrian Kurds now in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, as well as what more can be don...

Academia has focused on risks of statelessness for Syrian refugee families. But what about children who are born to the millions of displaced parents who have not crossed an international border into another country? This paper consequently considers the factors that may put internally displaced Syrian children at heightened risk of statelessness.

The Syrian conflict has contributed to major debates in culture, media and politics around transitions linked to borders, ethnicity and identity. Against this backdrop, this article explores the use of ‘Rojava’, a keyword referring to Kurdish-majority areas in the country. It examines the term’s changing meanings and usage against the evolving back...

What is the potential impact of world attention turning to the COVID-19 pandemic and its socio-political consequences, on statelessness research? The term ‘Covidisation’ has been coined by Dr. Madhukar Pai for the reorientation of research in this manner. By examining how COVID-19 may impact on funding, the representation of stateless people and aw...

In this blog entry, Thomas McGee, PhD candidate at the Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness at the University of Melbourne, reflects on the emerging body of critical statelessness scholarship, and considers its relation to the more established field of Critical Citizenship Studies (CCS). He argues that critical perspectives on statelessness can b...

Communities are taking action as they challenge decades of discrimination at the hands of national and local authorities.

The recent global debates on ‘citizenship stripping’ for associates of the Islamic State terrorist group have been characterised by emotive responses propagated by the Western tabloid press. Knee-jerk reactions tend to dominate in place of nuanced discussions and evidence-driven policy articulations. Citizenship stripping has been considered to con...

Des millions de Syriens ont demandé l’asile à l’étranger, d’abord dans les pays voisins puis en Europe occidentale. Parmi eux, de très nombreux Kurdes ont été rendus apatrides par l’État syrien. Confrontés à des systèmes d’asile européens peu au fait des questions d’apatridie, ils se heurtent à des difficultés parfois insurmontables pour faire reco...

The situation of governments saying neither ‘yes’ nor ‘no’ to requests for membership in their citizenry bodies is the lived experience for many in the Gulf region of the Middle East. With naturalisation possibilities restrictively managed, many are left to wait almost indefinitely. Indeed, a peculiar characteristic in several of the relatively new...

تقدم هذه الورقة حجتين رئيسيتين، الأولى هي أنه لا يزال انعدام الجنسية يؤثّر على كُرد سوريا حيث أن قسماً من عديمي الجنسية قبل 2011 لم يتحصّلوا على الجنسية إلى اليوم (مثل مكتومي القيد الذين استبعدوا من المرسوم 49)، كما أن من حصلوا على الجنسية بعد 2011 ما زالوا يعانون من الإرث السلبي لانعدام الجنسية. الحجة الثانية: تجادل هذه الورقة، بأن قضية انعدام الج...

يقدم هذا الفصل دراسة عن حالة الإسكان والأراضي والممتلكات للنازحين المحليين والنازحين في منطقة عفرين السورية منذ انطلاق "عملية غصن الزيتون" بقيادة تركيا في يناير 2018. تم وصف انتهاكات حقوق الإسكان والأراضي والممتلكات في المقابلات التي تقدم تقارير دقيقة عن أدوار ومشاركة مختلف الجهات الفاعلة فيما يتعلق بالاحتلال ونقل الإسكان والأراضي والممتلكات. تتناو...

Children born to Yezidi survivors of genocidal rape during Islamic State (ISIS) captivity are likely to face a future interspersed with difficult realisations about the tragic circumstances of their coming into this world. In the shadow of the trauma endured by their mothers, many are subject to the legacy of genocide. One such manifestation is the...

This piece recounts the rejections faced by mixed-faith Yezidi couple Shirman & Farida (pseudonyms) as they navigated their way from Afrin, Syria via Erbil, Kurdistan Region of Iraq, to awaiting their asylum approval in Germany.

The Critical Statelessness Studies Project emerged to promote reflexive critical analyses of mainstream approaches to statelessness that have emerged over the past decade or so in both academia and civil society. The CSS blog series provides a platform for (emerging) statelessness scholars engaged with critical theory or critical methods. Critical...

This article responds to the literature gap within both discourses on ‘sexual citizenship’ and statelessness studies on the nexus between statelessness and sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, and sex characteristics (‘SOGIESC’). It explores the intersectional experiences of stateless lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and...

A researcher from Melbourne University is looking at how statelessness is affecting the Kurds of Syria, incorporating the discriminatory census which took place during the 1960s and the more recent civil war in the country. Thomas McGee is a PhD researcher at the Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness at the University of Melbourne's Law School. Hi...

Fully Human: Personhood, Citizenship and Rights, by international human rights scholar Lindsey N. Kingston, is an ambitious academic study of the global hierarchies of belonging. [...] In presenting the problems around non-functioning citizenship, Kingston’s book helps to recognize the reality that “citizenship itself is a gradient category, with...

A blog entry on the recent engagement of stateless Bidoon medical volunteers within the Covid19 crisis response in Kuwait. Responses from Kuwaiti citizens seem to suggest a possible shift in public attitudes to the wider question of statelessness in the country. “The present spotlight on the issue, alongside the unusually strong positive reaction...

While statelessness is not a new problem for Syria, the civil war has brought about additional risks and instances of becoming stateless. It has also transformed situations and vulnerabilities for those who already lacked Syrian citizenship. Greater efforts are urgently needed to understand the impacts of statelessness within post-conflict and forc...

من المرجح أن يواجه الأطفال الذين ولدوا للناجيات الإيزيديات عبر اغتصاب الإبادة الاجتماعية خلال أسرهن لدى تنظيم الدولة الإسلامية، مستقب ًلا سيكتشفون خلاله حقائق قاسية بشأن الظروف المأساوية التي أحاطت بمجيئهم إلى هذا العالم. وفي ظل الصدمة التي لا تزال أمهاتهن تعانيها، يخضع العديد منهم لإرث الإبادة الجماعية. أحد تجليات ذلك، مأزق التوثيق المدني لأوراقهم...

The experiences of stateless Kurdish refugees from Syria in Iraq highlight the importance of identifying statelessness during RSD, and the benefits this can offer for refugee protection.

Turkish-backed violations intensify in Northeast Syria: why we should not be surprised.

The Kurdish-inhabited lands of the Middle East—spanning territories in Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey as well as the Caucasus—have hosted a complex ethno-religious mosaic of civilizations since ancient times. The region’s fertile soils bear witness to centuries of social cohesion and intercommunal harmony, punctuated by persecution, war, genocide, a...

How the Deprivation of Land Ownership Makes Minority Groups more Vulnerable: An Examination of the Case of Yazidis in Iraq, The analysis presented in this paper is based on 22 semi-structured interviews, a comprehensive review of relevant secondary literature and information drawn from official documents such as government policies, legal texts, an...

In certain European contexts, the lack of understanding about statelessness among government officials is compounded by the absence of references to statelessness within the most up-to-date Country of Origin Information (COI) on Syria. For example, the latest Syria Country Information and Guidance report by the UK Home Office (from August 2016) doe...

Syria has been the country of origin of the largest number of asylum seekers in the EU every year since 2013. Given the long-standing existence of stateless communities in Syria, it is evident that there are stateless refugees among those displaced by the conflict and ending up in Europe. Against this background, this report explores the treatment...

Throughout the conflict in Syria, freedom of movement often has been restricted or in some cases impossible during periods of prolonged fighting. Yet the movement of people and goods, including vital foodstuffs, medicines, equipment, and fuel, has been more feasible in certain areas than others. In many cases, local arrangements, historical circums...

In these short interviews with people for whom statelessness and displacement is a lived reality, families from Syria whose children are affected by both statelessness and now also displacement open a window into their lives. The interviews were conducted with stateless Kurds from Syria in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.

توماس ماكي، باحث بريطاني في الشؤون الإنسانية، يركز في عمله على الوضع السوري عامة والوضع في المناطق الكردية خاصة. أقام ماكي في مدينة حلب مدة عامين قبل الحرب التي اجتاحت البلاد، وهناك تعلم اللغتين الكردية والعربية.

"The polio campaign...sets a precedent for women's participation in large-scale action within Syria, and provides a citable example with which women can more confidently deny claims that the present circumstances do not permit them a role in supporting their people." This article from doctoral student Thomas McGee explores the participation of wom...

Thanks are due to the many Syrian activists who gladly shared their perspectives on this subject over the course of recent months. Their views have undoubtedly shaped my own and could, I believe, usefully inform current implementation policies.

The first order of business, for Syria's Kurds, is to deliver aid and humanitarian services to a part of the country that is quickly splintering. "I'm still in Aleppo and still alive," Newroz reassured me one day this month. She had just fled the city's Kurdish district of Sheikh Maqsud, where her brother had been pinned down since fighting engulfe...

“The Regional Government in [Iraqi] Kurdistan... must balance the humanitarian duty to provide a more substantive welcome to its brethren from Syria against the political concern of not incentivizing the de-population of Syria’s Kurdish areas.”

Back in the early stages of the Syrian conflict, I produced a short photo essay for the BBC on the expanding Domiz refugee camp in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. It captures the situation as increasingly numbers of Kurdish refugees began to cross the border.

After the Baathist regime stifled Syrian civil society for decades, it is tragic that the international community now fails to realize its constructive potential, both as subject of more straight-forward consensus for the opposition, and as a way to ameliorate the situation (or at least lessen its degradation). It should have been actively supporte...

Kurds are actively engaged in protests in Syria, despite claims to the contrary, and their voices should be heard more widely.

Easter is of particular importance to Christians in Syria, but the recent unrest means their traditional celebrations will be curtailed

The Marais is a diverse area of central Paris situated on the rive droite to the North of the river Seine. It roughly maps onto the bourgeois 3rd and 4th arrondissements of today’s capital, but the Marais’ complex history continues to shape the identity of the streets and their inhabitants. From humble origins as barren marshlands outside the city’...