YALE HUMAN RIGHTS & DEVELOPMENT L.J. 2017] The Risk of Statelessness VOL. XIX 53 The first section of this Article will provide necessary legal background on the right to nationality and statelessness. It will trace the development of nationality from an expression of pure sovereign authority to a fundamental human right under international law. It will then describe how the right to nationality was further cemented by the development of the international regime to protect stateless persons and reduce statelessness, as well as how this legal protection framework has gained influence in recent years. This section will highlight both the deep roots of nationality regulation in sovereign state authority and the measured inroads that have been accomplished in recent years to balance sovereign authority against the need to protect stateless persons. The second section will illustrate how the transnational legal debate about the right to nationality and statelessness in the Dominican Republic has led the Inter-American Court of Human Rights to create a new rule of protection for persons who face a “risk of statelessness.” It will begin by describing the history and evolution of the Dominican nationality debate. It will then describe how the nationality debate in the Dominican Republic led to a series of legal rulings by the Inter-American Court, the Dominican Supreme Court of Justice, and the Dominican Constitutional Court that have interpreted and applied the international law of statelessness in the Dominican context. Finally, this section will present a detailed account of the Inter-American Court’s statelessness analysis in Expelled Dominicans and Haitians and will explain how its decision created a rule that requires a grant of nationality in the country of birth for a child at risk of statelessness. The last section of this Article will argue that the statelessness determination should remain the threshold for protection under the international law of statelessness, and will explain how a risk assessment may appropriately be part of that determination. This section will first analogize the “risk of statelessness” doctrine to the concept of de facto statelessness, which is unprotected under the international law of statelessness. It will then argue for a return to the statelessness determination as the trigger for statelessness protection, and break down the different considerations that must be part of a statelessness determination process specifically tailored to the Dominican context. Finally, the Article will argue that once the appropriate rule of protection is reestablished, a standard of risk that will trigger a finding of statelessness is necessary. It will conclude that a child who is more likely than not stateless at birth should be considered a stateless person for purposes of international protection and receive a mandatory grant of nationality in the place of birth. I. THE HUMAN RIGHT TO NATIONALITY AND STATELESSNESS PROTECTION The international community took many important steps in its work to restore global order after the Second World War. The United Nations planted the seed that would grow into the human rights legal order with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and consolidated regimes for Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3111529