The State of Statelessness Research 5 It comes as little surprise, then, that the study of statelessness initially emerged as the study of nationality law, leading over time to the exploration, interpretation and annotation of international standards and of domestic norms relevant to statelessness. Scholars have been seeking, for instance, to better understand the obligations held by states with regard to the avoidance of statelessness and the protection of the rights of stateless persons.6 Research has also been undertaken to elucidate the underlying causes of existing situations of statelessness, pinpoint gaps in nationality law that may be creating or perpetuating this condition, identify stateless populations and discuss the treatment received by stateless people.7 Indeed, statelessness has been discovered as the ultimate human rights case study, involving as it does the situation of ‘a man who is nothing but a man’8 and allowing for the study of the challenges inherent in the realisation of rights, separate from nationality. However, although undeniably a legal anomaly, at its heart statelessness is also a human condition. It affects people – often in devastating ways. Not only does it have an impact on their legal status and ability to exercise rights, it also has an effect on the way they are perceived and how they perceive themselves.9 It can impact their life choices and life chances, trapping people in poverty or, together with fear of other rights violations, forcing them to flee their homes 6 For instance, P Weis, Nationality and Statelessness in International Law (Kluwer Academic Publishers Group 1979); J Chan, ‘The Right to a Nationality as a Human Rights – The Current Trend Towards Recognition’ (1991) 12 Human Rights Law Journal 1; various articles by written by Carol Batchelor written between 1995 and 2004, starting with Batchelor, ‘Stateless Persons: Some Gaps in International Protection’ (1995) 7 International Journal of Refugee Law 232; J Doek, ‘The CRC and the Right to Acquire and to Preserve a Nationality’ (2006) Refugee Survey Quarterly 25; L van Waas, Nationality Matters. Statelessness Under International Law (Intersentia 2008); P Spiro, ‘A New International Law of Citizenship’ (2011) 105 American Journal of International Law 694; A Edwards and L van Waas (eds), Nationality and Statelessness under International Law (Cambridge University Press 2014) (forthcoming). 7 For instance, K Groenendijk, ‘Nationality, Minorities and Statelessness. The Case of the Baltic States’ (1993) 3 Helsinki Monitor 13; C.Batchelor, ‘Transforming International Legal Principles into National Law: The Right to a Nationality and the Avoidance of Statelessness’ (2006) Refugee Survey Quarterly 25; T Lee, Statelessness, Human Rights and Gender: Irregular Migrant Workers from Burma in Thailand (Martinus Nijhoff Publishers 2005); D Weissbrodt and C Collins, ‘The Human Rights of Stateless Persons’ (2006) 28 Human Rights Quarterly 245; and numerous articles in a special edition of the Forced Migration Review on statelessness in 2009 (issue 32). 8 H Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (Harcourt Inc 1951). 9 As one stateless person described it in a special edition of Refugees magazine ‘Being stateless, you are always surrounded by a sense of worthlessness’. K McKinsey, ‘The Biharis of Bangladesh 147 Refugees 1, 13. tilburg law review 19 (2014) 3-10