2019 Statelessness & Citizenship Review 1(2) norm. 15 Crucially, individuals are thereby highly dependent on recognition as citizens by the state in order to have their human rights protected. Thus, the idea of state sovereignty — sovereignty to determine who is a citizen and who is not, coupled with the role of ensuring human rights 16 — exacerbates the vulnerability of stateless individuals and strengthens the power of sovereign states. Importantly, understanding statelessness as a consequence of the international state system provides an avenue for exploring statelessness as both an individual and a collective issue, often inextricably linked. 17 As the issue of who is recognised as a citizen (and who is excluded) in the respective sovereign states is explored, the question of which nations are recognised as sovereign states (and which are not) comes to light. Statelessness thus becomes an issue not only of who is granted citizenship status within recognised sovereign states, but also of which states have been internationally recognised to hold this sovereign power of legitimate recognition. Following this, a conceptual distinction has been drawn between ‘stateless persons’, understood as individuals without formal citizenship status, and ‘stateless peoples’, referring to individuals who, regardless of formal citizenship status, are members of a stateless nation. 18 Within the concept of the stateless nation is a recognition of the value of territory and sovereignty as well as an understanding of the state as an institution capable of preserving and fostering a cultural identity. 19 In this paper, the distinction between stateless persons and stateless people will be used as a conceptual tool to aid our understanding of how ‘Netherlands-based’ Kurdish individuals experience and construct meaning around citizenship. 20 Crucially, the notion of ‘stateless people’ does not necessarily suggest that the establishment of a sovereign state for this group is the most desirable outcome, as opinions within groups of stateless people can differ significantly. However, it does require that the notion of the (pre-existing) state as an emancipatory actor is problematised and that the presumption of citizenship as a blanket solution is challenged. CONCEPTUALISING CITIZENSHIP IN LIGHT OF ETHNICITY AND NATIONALITY Although the 1954 Convention grants legal protection exclusively to de jure stateless persons, 21 the concept of de facto statelessness challenges the fundamental binary assumption of citizenship as something an individual either has or does not have. Crucially, understanding de facto statelessness as the status of possessing formal citizenship that is ineffective, 22 begs the question of when citizenship is effective and when it is not, and acknowledges that citizenship cannot be reduced to solely denoting the possession of formal legal status. Carol 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 Miles Kahler, ‘Legitimacy, Humanitarian Intervention, and International Institutions’ (2011) 10(1) Politics, Philosophy & Economics 20. Hayden (n 10) 251–52. Gabiam (n 12). ibid 486; Thomas McGee, ‘The Stateless Kurds of Syria: Ethnic Identity and National ID’ (2014) 19(1–2) Tilburg Law Review 171, 172. Tas (n 10) makes a similar distinction, but uses the term ‘social statelessness’ instead of ‘stateless people’. Eliassi, ‘Statelessness in a World of Nation-States’ (n 5) 1412. ‘Netherlands-based’ is here used instead of ‘Dutch’ because a small number of the participants are only in the Netherlands on a temporary basis and do not consider themselves Dutch. However, most the individuals interviewed self-identify as Dutch. Laura van Waas, Nationality Matters: Statelessness under International Law (Intersentia 2008) 22. Hugh Massey, UNHCR and De Facto Statelessness (Background Paper, April 2010) 61. 286