Right of return

[2] It allows stateless persons and for those born outside their country to return for the first time, so long as they have maintained a "genuine and effective link".

"[7] During antiquity, groups of people were frequently deported or uprooted from their cities and homeland, often as part of conquest or as a punishment for rebellion.

During the Peloponnesian War, Athens expelled and scattered the inhabitants of Melos, Aegina and other cities (some of them being sold into slavery).

Following the victory of Sparta, the Spartan general Lysander in 405 BC made a concerted effort to gather these exiles and restore them to their original cities.

[8][9] The first codified law guaranteeing a right of return can be found in the English charter Magna Carta from 1215:[10] In future it shall be lawful for any man to leave and return to our kingdom unharmed and without fear, by land or water, preserving his allegiance to us, except in time of war, for some short period, for the common benefit of the realm.

[11]Another early example of national law recognizing the Right of Return was the French constitution of 1791, enacted on 15 December 1790:[6] the freedom of everyone to go, to stay, or to leave, without being halted or arrested unless in accordance with procedures established by the Constitution.The constitution put an end to the centuries-long persecution and discrimination of Huguenots (French Protestants).

[citation needed] Concurrently with making all Protestants resident in France into full-fledged citizens, the law enacted on December 15, 1790 stated that: All persons born in a foreign country and descending in any degree of a French man or woman expatriated for religious reason are declared French nationals (naturels français) and will benefit to rights attached to that quality if they come back to France, establish their domicile there and take the civic oath.

Therefore, the law potentially conferred French citizenship on numerous Britons, Germans, South Africans and others – though only a fraction actually took advantage of it.

Half a century later, following the German defeat in the First World War, a plebiscite was held in 1920 to determine the future of the area.

The Danish government asked the Allied Powers to let these expelled ethnic Danes and their descendants return to Schleswig and take part in the plebiscite.

[17]Hurst Hannum has made a similar argument: There is no evidence that mass movements of groups such as refugees or displaced persons were to be intended to be included within the scope of article 12 of the Covenant by its drafters.

[19] Bracka has argued similarly: At any rate, what seems clear is that neither the text nor the travaux préparatoires of the relevant UDHR, ICCPR and CERD provisions actually support circumscribing [the right of] return in this way [to exclude situations of mass displacement].

And although it may have been assumed at the time that such a scenario would receive discussion in "some other body of law", this is not synonymous with an intention to limit these articles to isolated individuals.

In addition, the HRC in General Comment 27 affirms this reading in so far as it states: "[t]he right to return is of the utmost importance for refugees seeking voluntary repatriation.

[14]Eric Rosand, legal advisor to the US State Department, used the same argument: Although political negotiations and the issue of self-determination may be appropriate in situations involving mass displacement, nothing in the text or travaux préparatoires of the relevant provisions of the UDHR, ICCPR, or ICERD limits the application of the right of return to individual instances of refusals to repatriate.

Mrs Titina Loizidou was a Greek-Cypriot refugee displaced from Northern Cyprus and prevented from returning by Turkey.

[23] In a similar case, petitioners for the Chagossians asked the ECHR in 2005 to rule about their removal from Diego Garcia by the British government in the 1960s.

The court ruled in 2012 that their case was inadmissible and that by accepting compensation, the islanders had forfeited their claim: The Court notably found that the heart of the applicants' claims under the European Convention on Human Rights was the callous and shameful treatment which they or their antecedents had suffered during their removal from the Chagos islands.

The island was divided along ethnic lines and most of the Greek-Cypriot displaced people were not allowed to return to their homes in the northern Turk-Cypriot side and vice versa.

Experts argue that, under those principles, Palestinian citizens who fled or were expelled from the areas that became Israel automatically acquired Israeli nationality with the creation of the state in 1948.

Another early example of national law recognizing the Right of Return was the French constitution of 1791, enacted on 15 December 1790:[6] the freedom of everyone to go, to stay, or to leave, without being halted or arrested unless in accordance with procedures established by the Constitution.The constitution put an end to the centuries-long persecution and discrimination of Huguenots (French Protestants).

Concurrently with making all Protestants resident in France into full-fledged citizens, the law enacted on December 15, 1790 stated that: All persons born in a foreign country and descending in any degree of a French man or woman expatriated for religious reason are declared French nationals (naturels français) and will benefit to rights attached to that quality if they come back to France, establish their domicile there and take the civic oath.

[citation needed] Therefore, the law potentially conferred French citizenship on numerous Britons, Germans, South Africans and others – though only a fraction actually took advantage of it.

[35] The historic context for Article 116 was the eviction, following World War II, of an estimated 9 million foreign ethnic Germans from other countries in Central and Eastern Europe.

Between 1950 and 2016 it is estimated that up to 1,445,210 Aussiedler/Spätaussiedler and their family members, including many ethnic Poles according to Deutsche Welle[37] (for example Lukas Podolski and Eugen Polanski), emigrated from Poland.

Anyone wishing to do so must present a number of documents, including "[a]vailable written records ... proving the Greek origin of the interested person and his ancestors".

People who would be otherwise eligible for this law can be excluded if they can reasonably be considered to constitute a danger to the welfare of the state, have a criminal past, or are wanted fugitives in their countries with the exception of persecution victims.

The Foreign Ministry has sent emissaries to countries around the world to urge the descendants of Russian emigrants to return home.

The 57/2007 Act provides for the descendants of Spaniards living abroad that left Spain because of political persecution during the Civil War and Franco's dictatorship – that is the period between 1936 and 1975 – to obtain Spanish nationality.

These acquired citizens struggle to prove their U.S. citizenship and have been falsely deported and imprisoned when exercising their right to return to the United States.