A Teleological and Child-Sensitive Interpretation assessing the future risk of being persecuted under the Refugee Convention.100 As elucidated by the IPT in GD (China): [t]he reference to ‘hypothesis’ should not be taken to imply uninformed guesswork, untethered to an evidentially-established reality, but rather describes an assessment of risk in an assumed future presence in the country of nationality, grounded in evidence of relevant country conditions. Should the risk assessment conclude that the current alienage arises because the claimant satisfies the requirements of the Convention’s refugee definition, status must be recognised.101 It transpires, in terms of the forward-looking inquiry, that for the physical presence of a stateless child born outside the country of nationality or former habitual residence of their parent(s) to be hypothesised in a designated country of reference, it must first be grounded in an ‘evidentially-established reality’. 102 Where such harm (whether that is the discriminatory denial of a nationality or other discriminatory deprivation of human rights) is feared in the future in that country territory, it suggests that, at a minimum, a stateless child born outside the country of nationality or former habitual residence of their parent(s) must practically be able to enter and remain in the territory of a designated country in order to satisfy the objective ‘real chance’ protection question. Whilst there is no requirement for stateless individuals, once in a predicament of alienage, to demonstrate their ability to re-enter a country of former habitual residence for the purposes of the refugee inquiry, it follows that a tangible connection to the designated country would be requisite for stateless children born outside the country of nationality or former habitual residence of their parent(s), who have not yet had the benefit of residing in that country. Such would be probative of a real and continuing connection to that territory and, as a central incident of nationality, illustrates the functional equivalency between the notions of a country of nationality and a country of former habitual residence. 103 The forward-looking inquiry would then conceive, against the vector of time, the claim of being persecuted through the deprivation and continued withholding of a nationality or other discriminatory deprivation of human rights. Distilled to its barest essence, the notion of a country of former habitual residence signifies a territorial connection between an individual and a designated country and serves as a medium or conduit for protection analysis, with no hardedged definition. This enables the presence or absence of protection-sensitive factors to inform the fluid operation of the notion of a country of former habitual residence in the context of the refugee definition and its operative components, which serve dual protection-sensitive purposes. Guiding this analysis is the resounding theme in state jurisprudence that was depicted previously in this article, that the notion is flexible and broad, and that any interpretation of the notion should not be so unduly restrictive as to pre-empt a claim to refugee status for a stateless person who has demonstrated a well- 100 101 102 103 GD (China) (n 48); AL (Myanmar) (n 79) 9 [40]. GD (China) (n 48) 10 [41]. ibid. Notably, the fact of a minor retaining a passport and having the right to enter and remain in the territory of a country in which he was born, but had only lived in for two months, was determinative in the IRB designating that country as a former habitual residence for the application of art 1A(2): GRF (Re) (n 73) 104–106. 23