YALE HUMAN RIGHTS & DEVELOPMENT L.J. 2017] The Risk of Statelessness VOL. XIX 71 analysis, which included reference to the Haitian legal framework, and concluded that “the appellant d[id] not face a risk of statelessness.”159 The Constitutional Court acknowledged that the 1961 Convention, the CRC, and the ICCPR each required that the Dominican Republic guarantee nationality to a child born in its territory that would otherwise be left stateless.160 However, the Constitutional Court found that this protection was not triggered in the case of Ms. Deguis. The Court cited the Constitution of Haiti, which provides that “Haitians of origin are: . . . 2. Everyone born in foreign territory to a Haitian father or mother.”161 The Court went on to reiterate that this guarantee of jus sanguinis nationality was present in Haitian Constitutions spanning more than a century.162 The Constitutional Court concluded that Ms. Deguis had acquired Haitian nationality under the Haitian Constitution, and that the international protection against statelessness therefore did not apply.163 The Constitutional Court went on to highlight that the right to Haitian nationality was guaranteed through mechanisms for consular birth registry, and that Ms. Deguis’ parents should have registered her birth though the established process.164 The decision of the Constitutional Court caused international outcry, and its order requiring Dominican authorities to review the birth registry and identify persons who had received Dominican nationality in error was widely viewed as the culmination of the campaign of denationalization.165 The Inter-American Court responded in 2014, in the context of a case that had been pending against the Dominican Republic before the InterAmerican system for nearly fifteen years.166 limit the “in transit” concept to 10 days). 159. Id. at 75. 160. Id. at 76-77. 161. Id. at 77. 162. See id. at 78 (finding similar provisions in the Constitutions of Haiti from 1843, 1846, 1849, 1867, 1874, 1879, 1888, 1889, 1946, 1957, 1964, 1971, 1983, 1987, and 2011). 163. Id. at 78; see also id. at 79-80 (highlighting that the same logic had been applied by a Spanish court, which had found that a child born to Dominican parents could not acquire Spanish nationality under a theory of statelessness protection because the Dominican Constitution provided for Dominican nationality jus sanguinis). 164. Id. at 81. 165. See, e.g., Amnesty Int’l Report on Stateless People in the Dominican Republic, supra note 13, at 11-21; Human Rights Watch Report on Arbitrary Deprivation of Nationality in the Dominican Republic, supra note 5; Open Soc’y Justice Initiative, Dominican Republic Court Ruling Raises Mass SOC’Y FOUNDS. (Oct. 2, 2013), Statelessness Threat, OPEN https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/press-releases/dominican-republic-court-rulingraises-mass-statelessness-threat [https://perma.cc/T3ZK-N3KT]. 166. Case of Expelled Dominicans and Haitians v. Dominican Republic, Preliminary Objections, Merits, Reparations and Costs, Judgment, Inter-Am. Ct. H.R. (ser. C) No. 282, ¶¶ 36 (Aug. 28, 2014) (explaining the procedural background of the case against the Dominican Republic). Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3111529