TAIWANESE IN NORWAY TO TAKE NATIONALITY CASE TO EU RIGHTS COURT

A group of overseas Taiwanese in Norway is taking a case on their national identity to the European Court of Human Rights next year, after Norway's Supreme Court rejected their appeal to change their listed nationality from "China" to "Taiwan."

Joseph Liu, a Taiwanese lawyer living in Norway, told Lin Yu-li and Emerson Lim of the Central News Agency (CNA), that he plans to file the case with the European Court of Human Rights in the first half of 2021.

According to Liu, one of the initiators of the movement "My Name, My Right," he and his group plan to hire lawyers from the United Kingdom and France, who know European law and are also presumed to have better knowledge of Asia, to represent them. The planned suit stemmed from the group's failed attempt to force the Norwegian government to change the nationality of local Taiwanese residents on their residency permits through the legal process.

Norway first changed the nationality shown on their residency permits from "Taiwan" to "China" in 2010, a move seen as an attempt to appease Beijing after the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo that same year, according to the Taiwanese lawyer. In 2018, 10 Taiwanese students launched a fundraising campaign in Taiwan to fund their lawsuit against Norwegian authorities, including its Directorate of Immigration, and collected more than NT$3 million (US$104,200) for the effort. They used the funds to file cases asking that their listed nationality be changed all the way to Norway's Supreme Court, but the Norwegian courts all rejected their plea, citing the "one China" policy.