THE RISK OF STATELESSNESS 90 YALE HUMAN RIGHTS & DEVELOPMENT L.J. 2017 [Vol. 19 With no clear guidance on this point other than that provided by the UNHCR, one possible interpretation can be derived from the relationship between statelessness protection and the human right to nationality. The most fundamental statement of the human right to nationality is that everyone must have one. Moreover, nationality under the law is binary in that a person either has a nationality or does not have a nationality, and is stateless. Despite insightful observations that some nationalities seem to have more heft than others,279 legal statelessness is the only alternative to nationality under the law. Together, the declaration that everyone must have a nationality and the fact that without one a person is stateless, suggest that statelessness protection cannot tolerate a situation in which a person is more likely stateless than in possession of a nationality. The natural conclusion is that anything more than a 50% chance of statelessness would require a finding that a person is stateless for the purpose of international protection to ensure that they receive the protection of a nationality. One rejoinder might be that a 10% threshold seems equally appropriate when one considers that statelessness is “a fate of ever increasing fear and distress . . . deplored by the international community of democracies.”280 With no clear legal guidance on this point, however, it is important to consider the historic struggle to establish the legal regime on statelessness and its relationship to the desire of states to retain control over the means of nationality acquisition. While the measured successes of the protection regime for stateless persons described in the first section are encouraging, there is certainly cause for caution in interpreting and applying norms of protection in this area. Requiring a state to grant its nationality to a child that demonstrates only a 10% chance of statelessness at birth is likely to have a chilling effect on the increasing disposition of states to embrace statelessness protection. Some practical examples drawn from the Americas may help to highlight the need to set this standard of protection with states’ sovereignty interests in mind. The Bahamas, a relatively small country that serves as home to a substantial number of Haitian migrants and their Bahamian-born children, has also struggled with the question of citizenship rights for this population.281 The Bahamas is much less connected to the international legal frameworks that have driven these questions in the Dominican Republic, which has ratified the American Convention and the jurisdiction of the Inter-American Court,282 and signed the 1961 Convention.283 279. Audrey Macklin, Who is the Citizen’s Other? Considering the Heft of Citizenship, 8 THEORETICAL INQUIRIES L. 333, 354 (2007). 280. See Trop v. Dulles, 356 U.S. 86, 102 (1958) (holding that denationalization of U.S. citizens who had abandoned their mandatory military service was cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by the 8th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution). 281. See Kristy A. Belton, Dry Land Drowning or Rip Current Survival? Haitians Without Status in the Bahamas, 34 ETHNIC & RACIAL STUD. 948, 948-51 (2011). 282. The Bahamas has not ratified the jurisdiction of the Inter-American Court, nor has it ratified the American Convention on Human Rights. See OAS, Dep’t of Int’l Law, American Convention on Human Rights: “Pact of San Jose, Costa Rica” (B-32), Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3111529