38.2 (7) TEMPROSA.DOCX38.2 (7) TEMPROSA.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 296 BERKELEY JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW 1/16/2021 12:59 PM [Vol. 38:2 is itself an incorporation of the right to nationality, including civil and political rights, for stateless people. Focusing on the right to nationality has the additional advantage of adapting to the changing norms of international law. While nationality is a concept that was created to organize the world under the old conditions of the feudal period, the concept remains dynamic and can acquire other meanings. 368 It has indeed already acquired a different meaning in the last century. By themselves, Nottebohm and the ICCPR are demonstrations of the norm-adapting quality of the right to nationality. They point to a normative change in the way that nationality is viewed, that is, it is not just the formal link between a State and the individual. It is a genuine link protecting the individual. Initiatives of international actors have reconceptualized "citizenship status, shifting from an identity to a rights frame." 369 We expect the concept of nationality to change and adapt in the future. A more differentiated and flexible approach should hence be preferred because it could accommodate change. b. Piercing the Veil of Citizenship Status Pragmatically, as suggested, determining stateless status should necessarily begin with an analysis of the laws and state practices of the States to which a person has links. Applying their laws and practices to the factual circumstances of particular persons should then follow. My proposed functional approach does not stop there, however, but adds that determinations of stateless status should consider what I term "badges of protection." I posit here that determinations should take into account "badges of protection" or badges of the manifestations of the right to nationality. At our moment in international law's history, the right to nationality relates to and incorporates protection for the exercise of core civil and political rights. 370 Where absent, these badges should compel determinations to pierce the veil of declarations of status— citizenship or statelessness—to exceptionally examine a person's real status. A determining State, entity, or body should resort to piercing when another State disregards its own citizenship law. Additionally, piercing should be resorted to when a State declares one to be its citizen or stateless with fraud, malfeasance, or to otherwise evade an obligation. It is a middle ground between the very strict text-only examination of statelessness and the very loose revalida of de facto statelessness. In international law, courts and tribunals have pierced the corporate veil to disregard the professed nationality of a corporation. In Barcelona Traction, 368. McDougal et al., supra note 68, at 998. 369. Spiro, supra note 292, at 694–95. Spiro argued that the existence of a conceptual shift from "nationality" to "citizenship" is a shift away from the formal, traditional and sovereignty perspective on nationality. 370. In the coming years, the right to nationality may have a different articulation. The badges would have to adjust.