tilburg law review 19 (2014) 127-135 brill.com/tilr Statelessness as a Lack of Functioning Citizenship Lindsey N. Kingston Assistant Professor, International Human Rights and Director, Institute for Human Rights and Humanitarian Studies, Webster University Saint Louis, Missouri lkingston54@webster.edu Abstract Central to the issue of statelessness is the concept of ‘functioning citizenship’, which requires an active and mutually-beneficial relationship between the state and the individual. This relationship is essential for the protection and promotion of international human rights. In cases of both de facto and de jure statelessness, however, this robust form of political membership is limited or missing entirely. Expanding on Elizabeth F. Cohen’s concept of ‘semi-citizenship’, this article contends that membership exists along a spectrum and requires not only the granting of formal citizenship, but also attention to the functionality of that relationship. Government-sponsored identities will continue to be important prerequisites for rights protection within the modern ‘society of states’, but truly functioning citizenship requires us to expand our understandings of responsibility and membership. The international community must critically examine the ways that individuals are recognized as worthy of human rights. Keywords statelessness – functioning citizenship – human rights – semi-citizenship – political membership 1 Introduction Functioning citizenship requires an active and mutually-beneficial relationship between the state and the individual. It signifies membership in a political community, in which citizens support their government in various ways while enjoying the protections and services associated with their privileged © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2014 | doi 10.1163/22112596-01902013