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terms, States should 'revision' statelessness in light of the 1954 Statelessness Convention's aim to protect the unprotected. As emphasized, it is provided for in the
treaty, and there is a momentum to reconsider approaches to the definition.
The next subsection presents a tentative framework that works as a middle
ground to the de facto and de jure debate by suggesting a change in the de jure
definition of statelessness. I suggest this change not by incorporating vague and
undefined concepts relating to de facto statelessness, but by looking at what I term
are "badges of protection" in a substantive analysis and by assigning greater responsibilities to the international community (not one State only) in stateless status determinations and the identification of statelessness more broadly. Indeed,
definitions are meaningless on their own. A good concept aligns well with its purpose. 346 As previously argued, the ultimate goal of the statelessness regime is the
protection of unprotected persons who are not refugees.
B. Components of a Proposed Protection-Oriented Framework Agenda
1.
From Formalism to Functionalism
One of the greatest challenges to statelessness is conceptualizing what it truly
means. I have contended here that the conceptualization of citizenship varies from
one State to another, and so does statelessness. In developing a framework which
'revisions' the definition of statelessness, States ought to advance the goal of the
statelessness regime. Any revision should be premised on the 1954 Statelessness
Convention as a protective human rights instrument. 347 Rights should be the baseline. Under basic social contract theory, the guarantor and protector of all rights
is one's State. 348 In the classic formulation of Henry Shue, with every basic right,
three types of State duties correlate: duties to avoid depriving rights, duties to
protect from deprivation, and duties to aid the deprived. 349 Even if States are the
duty-bearers to all living within their territories, 350 and States are obligated to
ensure the rights of all persons within their territories or all persons subject to their
346. A concept is good if the following aligns well: (a) the events or phenomena to be defined,
(b) the properties or attributes that define them, and (c) the term covering both the event or phenomena
and the properties or attributes. John Gerring, What Makes a Concept Good? A Criterial Framework
for Understanding Concept Formation in the Social Sciences, 31(3) POLITY 357, 357–58 (1999).
347. For the human rights dimensions of statelessness, see, e.g., Michelle Foster & Hélène Lambert, Statelessness as a Human Rights Issue: A Concept Whose Time Has Come, 28(4) INT'L J.
REFUGEE L. 564 (2016).
348. Human rights instruments also assert State responsibility. For instance, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaims that States pledge themselves for the promotion of universal respect for and observance of human rights. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, G.A. Res. 217
A(III), Preamble, U.N. Doc. A/RES/3/217A (Dec. 10, 1948).
349. HENRY SHUE, BASIC RIGHTS: SUBSISTENCE, AFFLUENCE, AND U.S. FOREIGN POLICY 52
(1980).
350. See Andrea Cornwall & Celestine Nyamu-Musembi, Putting the 'Rights-Based Approach'
to Development into Perspective, 25(8) THIRD WORLD Q. 1415, 1417.