YALE HUMAN RIGHTS & DEVELOPMENT L.J. 2017] The Risk of Statelessness VOL. XIX 63 children.93 This history has fed widespread prejudice, which has in turn been stoked by xenophobic extremists, and created the conditions necessary for the disenfranchisement of Dominican-born persons of Haitian descent.94 In this environment, Dominican authorities have elaborated policies, promulgated laws, and even overseen a Constitutional reform that has resulted in the systematic denial and deprivation of Dominican nationality to Dominican-born persons of Haitian descent.95 The following section explores how the Dominican Republic has implemented measures of nationality discrimination over the last two decades, and looks at the role of the human right to nationality and statelessness protection in combating the consolidation of a system of institutionalized racism. This section will first set out the legal framework in which the nationality debate has unfolded in the Dominican Republic and highlight the abuses that have led to the situation of statelessness. Next, this section will track a debate between the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the high courts of the Dominican Republic about the proper role for the law of statelessness in addressing the situation of persons denied Dominican nationality. Finally, this section will present the Inter-American Court’s decision in Expelled Dominicans and Haitians vs. Dominican Republic, in which the Court took a novel normative step to protect those who face a “risk of statelessness” in the Dominican Republic. Specifically, the Court expanded the well-established rule described in the previous section that a state must guarantee its nationality to a child born stateless in its territory. The Court found that the Dominican Republic had an obligation to determine whether children born in its territory were stateless, and in finding that it had failed to do so, required it to guarantee Dominican nationality to persons who faced a risk of statelessness. This discussion frames the critique presented in the final section of this paper. A. Nationality Rights and Statelessness in Hispaniola The history of Dominican and Haitian relations is long and complex.96 An account of the common history of these two conjoined island nations often begins with the 1822 invasion by Haitian forces of the Dominican Republic directly after its independence from Spain in 1821.97 The period of Haitian occupation lasted until 1844, and was followed by persistent conflicts that left scars that have marked Dominican-Haitian relations for 93. See Edward Paulino, Dominican Republic: Bearing Witness to a Modern Genocide, BERKELEY REV. LATIN AM. STUD., Spring–Fall 2016, at 51, 55. 94. See Bridget Wooding, Upholding Birthright Citizenship in the Dominican Republic, 44 IBEROAMERICANA – NORDIC J. LATIN AM. CARIBBEAN STUD. 99, 99-101 (2014). 95. See Amnesty Int’l Report on Stateless People in the Dominican Republic, supra note 13, at 1121. 96. See Blake, supra note 3, at 143-48; Hannam, supra note 12, at 1132-36. 97. D.J. Lecce, International Law Regarding Pro-Democratic Intervention: A Study of the Dominican Republic and Haiti, 45 NAVAL L. REV. 247, 248 (1998). Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3111529