38.2 (7) TEMPROSA.DOCX38.2 (7) TEMPROSA.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 248 BERKELEY JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW 1/16/2021 12:59 PM [Vol. 38:2 on the application of the definition of statelessness in international law. 30 In my research, I have yet to encounter a piece that directly questions and addresses the definition of statelessness in international law from a distinct critical rhetoric vantage point. This Article aims to fill those gaps in the academic literature. This Article also offers a normative contribution, building the case towards 'revisioning' the definition and encouraging States to revise their approach to statelessness. The 1954 Statelessness Convention allows any State that is a party to the Convention to request a 'revision' of the Convention through a notification addressed to the UN Secretary-General. 31 I believe that international law's approach to statelessness should not be entirely thrown out, for its approach grants rights and aims to protect people without citizenship, but the definition must be so reformed as to fulfill the promise of emancipation. 32 This Article proposes a two-pronged framework that recalibrates the definition. The first prong moves the definition of statelessness from formal to substantive protection, thus allowing a piercing of the veil of citizenship and placing nondiscrimination as the core tenet of statelessness determinations. The second prong reorients the State's responsibilities and duties in statelessness determinations, limiting the discretion of the State and assigning more duties to the international community as a whole. To be clear, I do not advocate for the abandonment of legal statelessness for de facto statelessness, but rather advocate for revisioning the definition of legal statelessness itself. That is, the definition that is codified in the 1954 Statelessness Convention. Doing so, I take into account the goal-oriented dimensions of the 1954 Statelessness Convention and propose assigning wider duties to the international community. 33 While this Article's analysis and prescriptions around the domination-emancipation discourse of statelessness may neither be definitive nor comprehensive, the aim is to spark a debate that will move the law forward. 34 30. Alice Edwards & Laura Van Waas, Statelessness, in THE OXFORD HANDBOOK OF REFUGEE AND FORCED MIGRATION STUDIES 290, 296 (Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh et al. eds., 2014). ("In contrast, there has been little discussion of the application of the definition of a stateless person that is provided by international law and to which rights are attached."). 31. 1954 Statelessness Convention, supra note 16, at art. 41. 32. For a critical view of citizenship as a flawed model, see Barry Hindess Citizenship for All, 8 CITIZENSHIP STUD. 305 (2004). 33. This approach is inspired by literature that aims to "bridge" international law and moral philosophy. See Steven Ratner, Ethics and International Law: Integrating the Global Justice Project(s), 5 INT'L THEORY 1 (2013); Steven Ratner, International Law and Political Philosophy: Uncovering New Linkages, 14 PHIL. COMPASS (2018); see also Samantha Besson, Moral Philosophy and International Law, in THE OXFORD HANDBOOK OF THE THEORY OF INTERNATIONAL LAW 385 (Anne Orford & Florian Hoffman eds., 2016). 34. Indeed, further studies in other disciplines can lend more light on whether the definition actually leads to meaningful positive change in the lives of the stateless.