38.2 (7) TEMPROSA.DOCX38.2 (7) TEMPROSA.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 274 BERKELEY JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW 1/16/2021 12:59 PM [Vol. 38:2 While the binary category (stateless or citizen) is generally maintained, 208 States understand and use the legal concept of statelessness differently. As a doctrinal matter, this leads to an implicit contestation of the definition of statelessness in international law. While the ILC declared that the definition of statelessness is a matter of customary international law, 209 and seemed to suggest that its customary status derives from the fact that the definition in the 1954 Statelessness Convention is singular in international law and not subject to any reservation, 210 a careful review reveals that States do not uniformly and consistently use the definition of statelessness set forth in the 1954 Statelessness Convention. Given disparate State practices, it may be questioned whether States are in contempt of their obligation or if contrary practices have arisen as seeds for a new rule. 211 These subsequent practices could also be evidence of the true meaning of the term. How States apply the definition in practice elucidates the agreement of the parties on its interpretation. 212 This Article suggests that differences are not merely due to the States' desire to flagrantly violate the definition of statelessness or to renege on treaty obligations, but are also a function of States interpreting and applying the definition differently because of the ideographic character of statelessness. Statelessness Identification as a Playing Field of Ideologies Understanding statelessness as rhetoric reveals not only the important ideographic nature of the term, but also the ideologies behind the process of identifying statelessness. I have previously introduced the identification of statelessness, together with stateless status determination, in Part I.D.1. The law bears ideologies that are not easily revealed through a reading of its text and the text's avowed objectives and the related declarations of States. Since the time of Hans Morgenthau, one of the major twentieth-century figures in the study of international 208. UNHCR Submission in AS (Guinea), supra note 206, ¶ 16. Cf. In citizenship studies, scholars posit that citizenship could be "graduated" since the concomitant layers of rights associated with legal, social, racial, and economic constructs differentiate the groups of people. See Avyanthi Azis, Urban Refugees in a Graduated Sovereignty: The Experiences of the Stateless Rohingya in the Klang Valley, 18 CITIZENSHIP STUD. 839 (2014). Aihwa Ong, Graduated Sovereignty in South-East Asia, 17 THEORY, CULT. & SOC. 55 (2000). See also Marie McAuliffe, Protection Elsewhere, Resilience Here: Introduction to the Special Issue on Statelessness, Irregularity, and Protection in Southeast Asia, 15 J. IMMIGR. REFUGEE STUD. 221, 227–28 (2017). Studies also demonstrated that citizenship exists along a spectrum and does not just require a grant of a formal citizenship. See also ELIZABETH F. COHEN, SEMI-CITIZENSHIP IN DEMOCRATIC POLITICS 15 (2009); Lindsey N. Kingston, Statelessness as a Lack of Functioning Citizenship, 19 TILBURG L. REV. 127 (2014). 209. International Law Commission, Draft Articles on Diplomatic Protection with commentaries, U.N. Doc. A/61/10, at 36 (2006). 210. UNHCR, HANDBOOK, supra note 79, at 9; see 1954 Statelessness Convention, supra note 16, at art. 38(1) (prohibiting reservations to Article 1). 211. See Anthea E. Roberts, Traditional and Modern Approaches to Customary International Law: A Reconciliation, 95(4) AM. J. INT'L L. 757, 790. 212. See VCLT, supra note 27, art. 31(3)(b).