On the Right to Have Nationality Rights: Statelessness,… 303 De jure statelessness is the condition of lacking an effective nationality where possessing an effective nationality requires not only access to civic rights within the territory of one’s state of nationality but crucially also these rights of entry, resident and diplomatic protection. The right to entry and residence is primary here since to possess civic rights in a given place, one has to have the freedom to be in (or return to) that place. The sources of relevant forms of de jure statelessness can be structural or administrative.9 Structural statelessness arises, fundamentally, from the fact that states have the right to determine their own citizenship laws and that the laws that they adopt may leave some persons lacking a nationality. The two primary modes for our current concern are, first, ‘conflict of laws’ such as the case that of a person born in a state with a pure ius sanguinis rule to parents who are non-citizen immigrants from a state with a pure ius soli rule and, second, the transfer of territory or sovereignty which alters the nationality status of citizens of the former state(s) and may leave some persons stateless (this arose, for example, with the break-up of the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia). Administrative statelessness arises from the fact that applications for nationality require documents and that such documents are produced and processed by administrative agencies and officers of states. Perhaps the most important of such documents, and the one I will focus on to illustrate the general point, is the registration of birth: Birth registration is usually fundamental to the realisation of all other citizenship rights: lack of birth certificates can prevent [presumptive] citizens from registering to vote, putting their children in school or entering them for public exams, accessing healthcare, or obtaining identity cards, passports, or other important documents.10 In 2017 UNICEF reported that ‘the births of around one fourth of children under the age of five worldwide have never been recorded’.11 In sub-Saharan Africa, that figure rises to just over 50%.12 This issue can also be particular significant in contexts of refugee flight from conflict. As David Howard note in the context of the current Syrian crisis: One of the many problems Syrian refugees face is statelessness. Children of refugees from countries such as Syria can often be born stateless, as the child is born outside the parent’s country, and nationality laws do not allow the mother’s citizenship to be passed to the child. Additionally, the parents may be unable to bring documentation from Syria, making it difficult to register the birth of their child in another country. Without such documentation, the child may never be registered and thus may be denied access to basic services, including healthcare. While lacking documentation alone does not make a 9 For a detailed list, see ISI (2018) and for discussion see Van Waas (2009). Manby (2009), p. 115. 11 UNICEF (2017a). 12 UNICEF (2017b). 10 123