A Teleological and Child-Sensitive Interpretation other states’, as once outside the territory of the original state, other governments have full capacity to protect refugees, ‘whatever the inclinations of the refugee’s home country’.92 In this sense, the definitional elements of the notions of a country of nationality and country of former habitual residence are functional equivalents within the meaning of the refugee definition. In effect, the country of reference (whether a country of nationality or country of former habitual residence) reflects the availability of state protection internally and externally at the heart of the assessment. As explained by David Cantor, it is the absence of state protection (internal protection) in the context of alienage (external protection) which acts as ‘the pivot on which notions of “surrogate” protection by host States operate’.93 As can be seen in the previous discussion, the utility of the country of reference is simply to inform the protection quotient of the refugee definition. For this reason, the substitute notion of a country of former habitual residence for stateless persons (an otherwise incomparable notion to the legal relationship between a state and its nationals) serves as a functional equivalent.94 It is helpful now to consider the operation of the notion of a country of former habitual residence within the broader framework of the refugee definition. Some have framed identification of the country of reference in art 1A(2) as a ‘gateway’ or ‘threshold question’. For example, Hathaway and Foster state: an initial question in the process of refugee status assessment is thus the identification of the applicant’s country of nationality, since all other aspects of the refugee definition can only be analysed once this threshold question has been resolved.95 Where it is readily discernible, it makes sense to first identify the country of reference before proceeding with the rest of the assessment in art 1A(2). However, in more complicated cases, as in the instance of a stateless child born outside the country of nationality or former habitual residence of their parent(s), it may be problematic to posit the country of reference as a ‘gateway’ or ‘threshold’ question in any rigid or prescriptive sense. Fundamentally, the refugee definition is a compound expression of interlocking elements, which cannot be interpreted in isolation. As stated by the RSAA, it is ‘a mistake to isolate elements of the definition, interpret them, and then ask whether the facts of the instant case are covered by the sum of those individual interpretations’; furthermore, it is ‘the totality of the words that define a refugee’.96 The process of answering the refugee question will require analysis of each constituent part and their relationship to one another. 92 93 94 95 96 Hathaway and Foster (n 23) 23. David Cantor, ‘Defining Refugees: Persecution, Surrogacy and the Human Rights Paradigm’ in Bruce Burson and David Cantor (eds), Human Rights and the Refugee Definition (Brill Nijhoff 2016) 350, 363. A country of nationality, in its legal sense, is largely irrelevant to the quality of a refugee: Guy Goodwin-Gill, ‘Stateless Persons and Protection Under the 1951 Convention or Refugees, Beware of Academic Error!’ (Conference Paper, Colloque portant sur Les récents développements en droit de l'immigration, 22 January 1993). See generally Michelle Foster, Jane McAdam and Davina Wadley, ‘The Protection of Stateless Persons in Australian Law: The Rationale for a Statelessness Determination Procedure’ (2017) 40(2) Melbourne University Law Review 401–55. As concerns the legal definition of statelessness, see Carol A Batchelor, ‘Stateless Persons: Some Gaps in International Protection’ (1995) 7 International Journal of Refugee Law 232, 232: the definition of statelessness is ‘a deliberately narrow, technical definition that “is not one of quality, simply one of fact”’. Hathaway and Foster (n 23) 54. Refugee Appeal No 74665 (Refugee Status Appeals Authority, Chairperson Roche, Members Haines and Murphy, 7 July 2004) 21 [46]–[48]. 21