The risky reality to legally exist - A critical analysis on the notion of legal identity in International Human Rights Law

Abstract: Around 20% of all people worldwide (1.5 billion) do not have an official and legally recognized document as proof of their identity. This affect, for example, their right to vote, to open a bank account, obtain formal employment or seek legal compensation. In other words, their lack of proof for their legal existence excludes them from participating in society on all various levels. This was acknowledged by the UN in the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a wide-ranging issue. In SDG target 16.9, states are by 2030 to ‘provide legal identity for all, including birth registration.’ However, the term ‘legal identity’ is not defined in international law, leaving legal identity as a vague concept in international human rights law (IHRL). This thesis aims, therefore, to offer a better understanding of legal identity and its impacts in IHRL. This includes exploring and critically analysing relating norms in IHRL, the discourse in policymaking and research, as well as states’ implementations. A particular focus is situated in if legal identity facilitates individuals’ access to rights and services, as there have been argued by NGOs and scholars. In addition, legal identity in IHRL is analysed in light of the theory ‘différance’. The thesis shows that there are several complex understandings of legal identity in international human rights law. Legal identity has been argued as a right, as a tool to realize rights, a concept dictating an individual’s relationship with the state, as a process ranking and excluding certain legal identities, as a concept reinforcing states’ power and, finally, a concept reflecting the power dynamics playing out in the international human rights system. These different understandings show various of impacts of legal identity on rights and obligations. What needs to be acknowledged is that legal identity cannot simply be understood as a mechanism for inclusion. The ambiguous meaning of legal identity, allowing wide discretion for the state, has made it a sitting duck for different agencies to use for justifying their interest, agencies which might have another agenda than that of the SDG’s to ‘leave no one behind’.