38.2 (7) TEMPROSA.DOCX38.2 (7) TEMPROSA.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 304 BERKELEY JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW 1/16/2021 12:59 PM [Vol. 38:2 possible to arrange that once the definition in the treaty is revisioned, questions arising out of the treaty body's interpretation or application of the new definition could be submitted to the ICJ for judicial review. Aside from installing a watchdog to the treaty body, this arrangement would ensure the continued development of the jurisprudence on statelessness and citizenship rights. Different regional human rights courts may also become oversight judicial bodies. One may argue that the creation of the treaty body takes away the primacy of citizenship issues from the States. However, this view reflects an antiquated vision of citizenship issues as exclusively within the province of States. Rather than seeing the international body as encroaching on the prerogative of States in dealing with citizenship issues, it should be regarded as a monitoring and enforcement body that encourages States to comply with international law obligations. In addition, this body should not take away the State's right to promulgate laws and regulations on aspects of citizenship, although it could accumulate evidence of emerging State practices. b. State Duties of Inquiry and Cooperation As the international community bears greater responsibility towards stateless persons, States should also take on additional ethical duties, drawn from public law, which will help promote better status determinations. I identify two of such duties that must fall unto States. First, the treaty body should develop a duty of inquiry on the part of determining States. It is not enough for States to determine statelessness; they must conduct these determinations out of a sense of legal obligation. Encouraging States to do so will hasten the emergence of status determinations as part of customary law, and as an obligation, States will be bound to perform determinations in good faith. States that identify stateless persons under the functional definition of statelessness will be better positioned to protect them. Several individual State level decisions have started moving into this direction. For example, in the Semeda Case, the UK Court conceived of a duty of inquiry as part and parcel of stateless status determinations. 414 In that case, the determination officer failed to make sufficient inquiries into the applicant's status. 415 The court, therefore, invalidated the Secretary of State's initial status determination. 416 In determinations, the UK Court warned that status adjudicators must ascertain whether the initial determining officer asked the right questions and took reasonable steps to acquaint themselves with the information needed to make proper determinations. 417 Whether the steps taken were reasonable depends on the factual circumstances of the case, so it is an obligation of conduct and not 414. See Semeda Case, supra note 117, ¶ 17. 415. See id. at ¶ 22. 416. See id. at ¶ 26. 417. See id. at ¶ 17 (citing Secretary of State for Education and Science v. Metropolitan Borough Council of Tameside, (1976) U.K.H.L. 6, (1977) A.C. 1014, United Kingdom: House of Lords (Oct. 21, 1976)).