YALE HUMAN RIGHTS & DEVELOPMENT L.J. 2017] The Risk of Statelessness VOL. XIX 59 expatriation was completed and that an expatriated woman not lose her nationality when married unless she acquired that of her husband.66 In fact, concerns about statelessness were so significant that the 1930 Hague Conference promulgated two additional protocols on the subject. The first was the Protocol Relating to a Certain Case of Statelessness, which provided that a child should acquire the nationality of the state of birth if her mother was a national of the state of birth and her father was of unknown nationality.67 The second was the Special Protocol Concerning Statelessness, which would require a state to readmit an expatriated person who had failed to acquire another nationality and had become indigent or engaged in criminal activity in another state.68 Regardless, like the 1930 Convention itself, these protocols had little practical effect due to their limited ratification.69 When statelessness emerged again as a matter of international concern after the Second World War, that concern had become more humanitarian in nature. Indeed, early work by the U.N. General Assembly, Economic and Social Council, Commission on Human Rights, and International Refugee Organization forged the understanding of nationality as a fundamental right at the same time that the protection of stateless persons was joined with the global conversation about the need for refugee protection.70 There was an evident concern for the legal situation of “persons who do not enjoy the protection of any government,”71 and while efforts focused more on providing assistance to refugees, stateless persons were also viewed as “unprotected” and in need of a comparable legal solution.72 In 1950, the U.N. General Assembly convened a Conference of Plenipotentiaries for a draft convention on the status of refugees and a draft 66. Id. arts. 7-11. 67. Protocol Relating to a Certain Case of Statelessness art. 1, opened for signature Apr. 12, 1930, 179 L.N.T.S. 115. 68. Special Protocol Concerning Statelessness art. 1, Apr. 12, 1930, 2252 L.N.T.S. 1435. 69. See Spiro, supra note 7, at 283. 70. Guy S. Goodwin-Gill (Senior Research Fellow), Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons: Introductory Note for the U.N. Audiovisual Libr. of Law, at 1 (2010), http://legal.un.org/avl/pdf/ha/cssp/cssp_e.pdf [https://perma.cc/EM7T-3J9K]. 71. Id. (quoting Comm’n on Human Rights, Rep. of the Commission on Human Rights on the Second Session, ¶ 46, U.N. Doc. E/600 (1947)). 72. Id. at 1-2. In his recounting of the 1950 summary records of the Ad Hoc Committee on Statelessness and Related Problems, Goodwin-Gill explains that the representatives that formed the Ad Hoc Committee disagreed about the relationship between protection for refugees and stateless persons. For example, French and U.S. representatives pushed for an immediate solution to the pressing refugee problem, but the former believed that statelessness was a less urgent “continuing concern of the world community,” id. at 2 (quoting U.N. Econ. & Soc. Council, Ad Hoc Comm. on Statelessness & Related Problems, Summary Record of the Second Meeting, ¶8, U.N. Doc. E/AC.32/SR.2 (Jan. 26, 1950)), and the latter suggested that some non-refugee stateless persons may not even require protection of the UN, id. Other representatives were concerned about similar gaps in protection suffered by each group and the need for comparable legal solutions. Id. at 3. The resulting recommendation was to create a convention for the protection of refugees and an additional protocol whereby states may agree to apply the convention to stateless persons who may not otherwise qualify as refugees. Id. at 3. Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3111529