YALE HUMAN RIGHTS & DEVELOPMENT L.J. 2017] The Risk of Statelessness VOL. XIX 49 stateless populations have identified significant challenges related to statelessness in every region of the world.2 A common characteristic of these stateless populations is the marginalization they suffer, often intentionally engineered by the state that they inhabit, and the vulnerability that accompanies an existence without legal identity or protection.3 Stateless persons often do not have basic identity documents, and their access to education, health services, and employment opportunities can be elusive.4 Stateless persons are often targeted by security officials and immigration authorities, and are more likely to be subjected to arbitrary detention and expulsion.5 Moreover, discrimination and the threat of physical violence seem to characterize the daily experience of many stateless persons.6 At the core of the challenge of addressing statelessness is the tradition of state control over the means of nationality acquisition and divestment. States have long considered their authority over the rules of membership in the nation to be among their most inherent powers.7 However, when the United Nations proclaimed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that the right to a nationality was among the core human rights that member states committed to respect and defend,8 the sovereign grip on nationality began to loosen. This was because the human right to nationality included both a guarantee of nationality to all and a prohibition against the arbitrary deprivation of that right.9 Less than a decade later, a regime for the international protection of stateless persons was created in furtherance of the universal protection of the right to nationality.10 2. See The World’s Stateless, INST. ON STATELESSNESS & INCLUSION 53-132 (Dec. 2014), http://www.institutesi.org/worldsstateless.pdf [https://perma.cc/67Y2-KS7Z] (covering global, regional, and national statelessness statistics). 3. See David Weissbrodt & Clay Collins, The Human Rights of Stateless Persons, 28 HUM. RTS. Q. 245, 264-70 (2006); Jillian Blake, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Race-Based Statelessness in the Americas, 6 GEO. J. L & MOD. CRITICAL RACE PERSP. 139, 143-53 (2014); Katherine Southwick, Preventing Mass Atrocities Against the Stateless Rohingya in Myanmar: A Call for Solutions, 68 J. INT’L. AFF. 137, 139-42 (2015). 4. Weissbrodt & Collins, supra note 3, at 266; Hélène Caux, Stateless in West Africa, UNHCR: TRACKS (Feb. 25, 2015), http://tracks.unhcr.org/2015/02/stateless-in-west-africa/ [https://perma.cc/J3WF-AJC7]. 5. Weissbrodt & Collins, supra note 3, at 267; see also Human Rights Watch, We Are Dominican: Arbitrary Deprivation of Nationality in the Dominican Republic (July 1, 2015), https://www.hrw.org/report/2015/07/01/we-are-dominican/arbitrary-deprivationnationality-dominican-republic [https://perma.cc/CB2Q-BUW8] [hereinafter Human Rights Watch Report on Arbitrary Deprivation of Nationality in the Dominican Republic] (noting that Dominican Republic practices “continue to arbitrarily deprive individuals of their right to Dominican nationality and citizenship-related rights”). 6. Weissbrodt & Collins, supra note 3, at 270; see also Amnesty Int’l Austl., Who Are the Rohingya Refugees? (Oct. 7, 2015), https://www.amnesty.org.au/who-are-the-rohingyarefugees [https://perma.cc/W7V5-QE83] (describing violence faced by the Rohingya). 7. See Peter J. Spiro, Citizenship, Nationality, and Statelessness, in RESEARCH HANDBOOK ON INTERNATIONAL LAW AND MIGRATION 283-86 (Vincent Chetail & Céline Bauloz eds., 2014). 8. See G.A. Res. 217 (III) A, Universal Declaration of Human Rights art. 15 (Dec. 10, 1948). 9. Id. 10. Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, Sept. 28, 1954, 360 U.N.T.S. 117 [hereinafter 1954 Convention]. Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3111529