Netherlands International Law Review (2018) 65:299–317 https://doi.org/10.1007/s40802-018-0116-7 ARTICLE On the Right to Have Nationality Rights: Statelessness, Citizenship and Human Rights David Owen1 Published online: 30 November 2018 © The Author(s) 2018 Abstract This article considers contemporary predicaments of nationality rights against the background of reflection on Arendt’s phrase ‘the right to have rights’. Addressing the right to a nationality, the right not to be arbitrarily deprived of one’s nationality, the right to change one’s nationality and the right to naturalize, it argues that Arendt’s concerns remain live ones for us and indicates what conception of the institution of citizenship and what conception of international order would serve to realize a right to have nationality rights. Keywords Arendt · Rights · Nationality · Citizenship · Statelessness · Arbitrary deprivation · Naturalize The fundamental deprivation of human rights is manifested first and above all in the deprivation of a place in the world which makes opinions significant and actions effective. […] We became aware of the existence of a right to have rights (and that means to live in a framework where one is judged by one’s actions and opinions) and a right to belong to some kind of organized community, only when millions of people emerged who had lost and could not regain these rights because of the new global political situation. Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (1958) 1 Introduction With the post-war development of the international human rights regime, especially since the mid-1970s, the sceptical remarks of Hannah Arendt’s concerning human rights in the context of statelessness, her provocative claim that national citizenship * David Owen dowen@soton.ac.uk 1 School of Economic, Social and Political Sciences, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK 123Vol.:(0123456789)