Sinking into Statelessness 21 According to the 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, a stateless person is one who is ‘(…) not considered a national by any State under the operation of its law.’2 No state needs to deny you citizenship by law: you are stateless if no state exists which grants it.3 At stake then is, whether entities like the Maldives will retain their legal identities as states, even if they become completely and permanently uninhabitable. At a UNHCR expert meeting in Bellagio, a panel held that this is indeed the case due to the presumption of state continuity.4 This view has been echoed by other scholars concerned with the application of the term ‘stateless’ to displaced islanders.5 At another UNHCR expert meeting in Prato, however, a different panel concluded that lack of territory is relevant to any determination of statehood.6 Our aim is to argue that, contrary to the findings of the Bellagio panel, displaced islanders will be stateless in the sense of the 1954 Convention. In particular, we will argue that the general presumption of continuity of statehood cannot be applied to states like the Maldives if they become permanently and completely uninhabitable. It follows that their laws will no longer be the laws of a state, meaning that those who are Maldivian nationals under the operation of Maldivian law, and who do not hold another citizenship, will become stateless in the sense of the 1954 Convention. 2 3 4 5 6 Panel on Climate Change (Cambridge University Press 2007), 694. See also Jane McAdam, Climate Change, Forced Migration, and International Law (Oxford 2012) 124. Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons (adopted 28 September 1954, entered into force 6 June 1960) 360 U.N.T.S. 117 (1954 Convention), art. 1.1. See also Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness (adopted 30 August 1961, entered into force 13 December 1975) 989 UNTS 175 (1961 Convention). For the opposing view, see McAdam, Climate Change, Forced Migration and International Law (n. 1) 140. UNHCR ‘Summary of Deliberations: Climate Change and Displacement, Identifying Gaps and Responses, Expert Roundtable’ (Bellagio 2011), para. 30. McAdam, Climate Change, Forced Migration, and International Law (n. 1) 138, 144. See also Jane McAdam, ‘Climate Change Refugees and International Law’, New South Wales Bar Association, 24 October 2007, 6; Maxine Burkett, ‘The Nation Ex-Situ: On Climate Change, Deterritorialized Nationhood and the Post-Climate Era’ (2011) 2 Climate Law 345; Jenny Stoutenburg, ‘When Do States Disappear? Thresholds of Effective Statehood and the Continued Recognition of “Deterritorialized” Island States’, in Michael Gerrard and Gregory Wannier (eds.) Threatened Island Nations: Legal Implications of Rising Seas and a Changing Climate (Cambridge 2013). UNHCR ‘The Concept of Stateless Persons under International Law, Summary Conclusions, Expert meeting organized by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Prato, Italy’ (27-28 May 2010) paras. 1.23 and 1.27 (Prato Conclusions). tilburg law review 19 (2014) 20-25