On the Right to Have Nationality Rights: Statelessness,… 307 Examples of mass denaturalisations by modern states are readily available. The ongoing case of the Rohingya in Myanmar has been rightly highlighted,24 however, I’ll focus on the example provided by the Dominican Republic in its treatment of people of Haitian descent not least because it is a reasonably established (albeit flawed) constitutional democracy and because the policy in question has been subject to both judicial and legislative judgment within the state. Consider the following case: Dilcia Yean was born on April 15, 1996, in the Dominican Republic to a Dominican woman of Haitian descent. Although the Dominican constitution establishes the principle of jus soli (and thus assigns citizenship to those born on Dominican territory), Yean was denied Dominican citizenship, and was refused permission to register her birth or to obtain recognition of her legal personality. Government officials said they had orders not to register or issue birth certificates to children of Haitian descent.25 The situation of Dilcea Yean was subject to judicial review by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights which upheld the right to registration of persons in her situation.26 But the political effect of this judgment was to escalate the issue further: In 2013, the Constitutional Court’s judgment 168/13 established that only persons born in the Dominican Republic to Dominican parents or legal residents are consider citizens. This interpretation was applied retroactively to all persons born between 1929 and 2010: arbitrarily depriving hundreds of thousands of people of Haitian descent, of their Dominican nationality, and created a situation of statelessness of a magnitude never before seen in the Americas. The criterion established in judgment 168/13, as well as the measures adopted to implement that judgment, come to constitute a crucial stage in this type of historical revisionism promoted by the Dominican authorities, aimed at consolidating an interpretation that establishes that persons born in the Dominican Republic of Haitian parents with an irregular migratory status do not have the right to Dominican nationality.27 This ruling, which was rapidly condemned by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights,28 is estimated to have affected over 200,000 people. It was followed by action from the legislature in the form of the Naturalisation Law of 2014 which claimed to provide a route to, or back to, citizenship for those affected (86% of these being of Haitian descent) but placed the burden of proof on individuals to provide 24 UNHCR (2017). Goldston (2006), p. 321. 26 The full judgment can be found here: http://www.corte​idh.or.cr/docs/casos​/artic​ulos/serie​c_130_%20 ing​.pdf (accessed 23 Jul 2018). 27 IACHR (2015). 28 IACHR (2015). 25 123