Constitutions, Citizenship and the Shadow of Statelessness confer their nationality on their children on an equal basis with men. 28 Illustrating the positive impact of international efforts, key milestones in helping to overturn gender discriminatory nationality laws have been the adoption of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women in 1979, 29 and the launch of the Global Campaign for Equal Nationality Rights in 2014. 30 At the national level, constitutional amendment has become a central part of the toolkit of gender equality, but as Shaw notes, ‘constitutions globally hold a more consistent baseline in relation to the inclusion of equality as a principle than they do in relation to citizenship’. 31 The prospects for reform of constitutional (and legislative) provisions on citizenship, nationality and statelessness, remain dogged by the spectre of state sovereignty. FRAGMENTED CITIZENSHIP GOVERNANCE AND HUMAN RIGHTS A key paradox identified by Shaw is that alongside the rise of populism, many dimensions of globalisation still continue to flourish. 32 In particular, Shaw argues that there has been a reconfiguration or transformation of the character of citizenship with new norms emerging at the subnational, national, regional and international levels, such that there is now multilevel governance of citizenship. 33 An exciting prospect is that this fragmentation of governance might therefore open up discursive spaces for contesting citizenship with the result that states’ absolute sovereignty in citizenship matters may be eroded. This third observation considers what this fragmentation might mean for the problem of statelessness. An important aspect of this emerging multilevel governance is that international norms relating to citizenship are evolving. 34 Shaw points out that questions of citizenship have not typically been prominent in the context of either international development work or international human rights promotion. 35 In some ways, this is in contrast to the issue of statelessness, which has received more international attention — illustrated in the aftermath of World War Two with the adoption of the 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons and the 1961 Convention, 36 admittedly then followed by a period of lack of international visibility, but now more firmly on the international agenda with the UNHCR mandate for stateless persons, the Global Action Plan to End Statelessness 2014−2024 and UNHCR’s #IBelong campaign. 37 However, one of 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 Background Note on Gender Equality, Nationality Laws and Statelessness 2020 (Background Note, UNHCR 2020) 2 <https://www.refworld.org/docid/5f0d7b934.html>. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, opened for signature on 18 December 1979, 1249 UNTS 13 (entered into force 3 September 1981). See Global Campaign for Equal Nationality Rights (Web Page) <https://equalnationalityrights.org/>. For earlier international initiatives targeting gender discriminatory nationality laws, see Deirdre Brennan, ‘Feminist Foresight in Statelessness: Century-Old Citizenship Equality Campaigns’ (2020) 2(1) Statelessness and Citizenship Review 43. Shaw (n 1) 148. ibid 222. ibid 224–25. ibid 251. ibid 148. 1951 Convention (n 2); 1961 Convention (n 14). See generally Global Action Plan to End Statelessness: 2014–2024 (Report, UNHCR 2014); ‘#IBelong Campaign to End Statelessness’, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (Web Page) <https://www.unhcr.org/en-au/ibelong-campaign-to-end-statelessness.html>. 381