YALE HUMAN RIGHTS & DEVELOPMENT L.J. 2017] The Risk of Statelessness VOL. XIX 73 would use to analyze the alleged violations of the right to nationality.174 The Inter-American Court spoke of nationality as a “natural condition of the human being,” which serves as a basis for both political and civil status.175 The Court acknowledged that, while the power to grant nationality is within the sovereign purview of a state, states must exercise that power in accordance with well-established rules of international law.176 The Court then recalled its framework for analysis in The Girls Yean and Bosico, where it established that states must abide by “their obligation to prevent, to avoid and to reduce statelessness,” and “their obligation to provide each individual with the equal and effective protection of the law without discrimination.”177 With regard to the obligation to avoid statelessness, the Court recalled that states may not adopt practices or laws that tend to create statelessness, and that this obligation should be assessed at the moment of birth.178 The Inter-American Court cited the ICCPR and highlighted the Human Rights Committee’s reiteration of the well-established norm that states are required to take every “appropriate measure” to ensure that children acquire nationality at birth.179 It further referenced the CRC in emphasizing this obligation, using it as guidance on the scope and meaning of the right to nationality guaranteed under the American Convention.180 The Court recalled its own application of these norms in The Girls Yean and Bosico, and reiterated that the condition of being born in the territory of a State is the only one that needs to be proved in order to acquire nationality, in the case of those who would not have the right to another nationality if they did not acquire that of the State where they were born.181 The Court then took a novel jurisprudential step in elaborating the circumstances that trigger this legal right to nationality in the place of birth. The Court established that if the State cannot be certain that a child born in its territory can obtain the nationality of another State, for example the nationality of a parent by ius sanguinis, that State has the obligation to grant it nationality (ex 174. Id. ¶¶ 253-64. 175. Id. ¶ 255 (citing Proposed Amendments of the Naturalization Provisions of the Constitution of Costa Rica, Advisory Opinion OC-4/84, Inter-Am. Ct. H.R. (ser. A) No. 4, ¶ 32 (Jan. 19, 1984)). 176. Id. ¶ 256. 177. Id. (citing Case of the Girls Yean and Bosico v. Dominican Republic, Preliminary Objections, Merits, Reparations and Costs, Judgment, Inter-Am. Ct. H.R. (ser. C) No. 130, ¶ 140 (Sept. 8, 2005)). 178. Id. ¶ 257-58. 179. Id. ¶ 258. 180. Id. ¶ 258-61. 181. Id. ¶ 260 (quoting Case of the Girls Yean and Bosico v. Dominican Republic, Preliminary Objections, Merits, Reparations and Costs, Judgment, Inter-Am. Ct. H.R. (ser. C) No. 130, ¶ 156 (Sept. 8, 2005)). Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3111529