2019 Statelessness & Citizenship Review 1(1) the law that is determinative in concluding that a State does not consider such an individual as a national. 17 Thus, as Paul Weis points out, stateless persons are ‘amorphous’ as there are various ways in which a person can become stateless whether by operation of the law or by state action or inaction as it may be. 18 While early drafters of the 1954 Statelessness Convention and Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness (‘1961 Statelessness Convention’) 19 were preoccupied with whether to include de facto stateless in the definition of statelessness, ultimately, the Conventions focuse on those that are de jure stateless. Despite this rigid definition in the conventions, scholars have started pointing to emerging norms of international law that appear to increase a state’s obligation to confer nationality, including the right to nationality as espoused in various international conventions. 20 Peter Spiro writes: [I]t is becoming increasingly clear that state discretion is no longer unfettered and that citizenship practice must account for the interests of individuals as well as those of states… The new law of citizenship, by contrast, may dictate citizenship eligibility for habitual residents and their children, with implications for the character of national community… [E]merging norms point to limitations on threshold naturalization requirements for long-term residents, and the trajectory suggests a move toward the required adoption, at least in some contexts, of a jus soli basis for birthright citizenship… The prospective norm holds that habitual residents and their progeny should not be relegated to noncitizen status indefinitely and that at some point in time, territorial presence should give rise to baseline eligibility for citizenship acquisition. 21 Thus, Spiro notes, Nottebohm (Liechtenstein v Guatemala) (‘Nottebohm Case’) ‘may supply a sort of inverse conceptual guide to the future international law of citizenship’. 22 International law scholars will remember the Nottebohm Case, which involved a claim by Liechtenstein against Guatemala for the wrongful seizure without compensation of the property of a Liechtenstein national. 23 Friedrich Nottebohm (born 1881) was German national by birth but 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Handbook on Protection of Stateless Persons under the 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees 2014) 16 [37]. Paul Weis, ‘The Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons’ (1961) 10(2) International and Comparative Law Quarterly 255, 263. Opened for signature 30 August 1961, 989 UNTS 175 (entered into force 13 December 1975) (‘1961 Statelessness Convention’). International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, opened for signature 19 December 1966, 999 UNTS 171 (entered into force 23 March 1976) art 24(3) (‘ICCPR’); Convention on the Rights of the Child, opened for signature 20 November 1989, 1577 UNTS 3 (entered into force 2 September 1990) arts 7(1)–(2) (‘CRC’); Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, opened for signature 18 December 1979, 1249 UNTS 13 (entered into force 3 September 1981) art 9(1); International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, opened for signature 7 Mar 1966, 660 UNTS 195 (entered into force 4 January 1969) art 1(3) (‘CERD’); Universal Declaration of Human Rights, GA Res 217A (III), UN GAOR, UN Doc A/810 (10 December 1948) art 15 (‘UDHR’). Peter J Spiro, ‘A New International Law of Citizenship’ (2011) 105(4) American Journal of International Law 694, 717, 718, 720. See also Case of the Yean and Bosico Children v The Dominican Republic (Judgment) (Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Series C 130, 8 September 2005) 58 [140]. Spiro (n 21) 722. Nottebohm Case (n 4) 13. 100