38.2 (7) TEMPROSA.DOCX38.2 (7) TEMPROSA.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2020] STATELESSNESS AS RHETORIC 1/16/2021 12:59 PM 263 their professions in the State that protects them or admits them, but only to the same degree as other non-citizens. On the other hand, if these individuals are determined to be citizens of another country, they are, in theory, entitled to citizen rights of that country. Assuming they are not disqualified, citizens are entitled to vote and participate in public affairs. 125 They are also allowed to practice their professions if able, duly authorized, and capacitated to do so. 126 Citizen rights offer higher protection and more entitlements than the rights of the stateless. Either way, identification procedures guarantee at least some legal protection. The Constitutive Nature of Statelessness Identification It has been asserted that identification procedures only declare an existing status because determinations only formally recognize people who are already stateless. 127 My position is different: identifying statelessness constitutes the status of persons, and therefore affords them the rights allocated to that status by the 1954 Statelessness Convention. By its very nature, the definition in the 1954 Statelessness Convention is constitutive because the State determines whether or not an individual is a citizen within what I call "circles of citizenship." During the determination process, the State or group of States exclude or include a person in their polities. When the State ascertains whether a State or group of States considers a person a citizen, the State "gazes" and passes a vicarious judgment on that person's status through its own perception of another State or group of States' polities. The determining State can also look into its own polity to consider them a citizen or not. Unlike refugee status, where being persecuted is among the objective crux of determination, 128 States determine who belongs or does not belong inside those circles of citizenship or polities. To illustrate, when State Y wants to determine A's citizenship status, it must determine whether State X (assuming X is the only State with a connection to A) considers A a citizen or not. In the course of the determination process, State Y passes judgment based on the laws, life events, and personal and family histories of A. State Y generates its own perception of State X's circle of citizenship and whether State X considers A to belong within it. Or, State Y could directly ask State X if it considers A a citizen or not. Assuming that State X replies in the negative (even if A believes they are a citizen of State X), A is deemed a stateless person. 125. ICCPR, art. 25(b), Dec. 19, 1966, 999 U.N.T.S. 171. 126. Stateless persons are also allowed to practice their professions, but only if they are "lawfully staying" in the territory of the State, among other conditions. See 1954 Statelessness Convention, supra note 16, art. 19. 127. UNHCR, HANDBOOK, supra note 79, at 10 ("An individual is a stateless person from the moment that the conditions in Article 1(1) of the 1954 Convention are met. Thus, any finding by a state or UNHCR that an individual satisfies the test in Article 1(1) is declaratory, rather than constitutive, in nature."). 128. See 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, art. 1(1).