From a Traditional International Law Approach to a Human Rights-Based Approach to Statelessness of plenipotentiaries to adopt a convention for the reduction or elimination of future statelessness.37 It took until 1961 for the 1961 Convention to be adopted.38 So how were nationality and statelessness understood in the middle of the 20th century? The classic point of view was that individuals were not subjects of international law, but rather linked to the law of nations through their nationality. A nationality allowed the individual to enjoy the benefits of the law of nations, such as diplomatic protection.39 Stateless persons were thus devoid of those benefits. In the words of Loewenfeld: “Their position may be compared to vessels on the open sea not sailing under the flag of a State, which likewise do not enjoy any protection.”40 A similar view can be found in the memorandum published by the Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees.41 But other disadvantages of being stateless were acknowledged as well, such as the difficulties stateless persons encounter in moving from one State to another, accessing the labour market, registering a marriage or a divorce, concluding contracts, and acquiring property.42 For Lauterpacht, the solution to the issue was situated within the law of nations; the individual must be able to invoke the protection of the law of nations against the State that severed the link of nationality. Therefore, conventions setting out such a protection were considered the appropriate solution.43 As to the causes of statelessness, statelessness was traditionally understood as a technical, legal issue.44 It was generally viewed as an anomaly in international law, originating from a lack of harmonisation and coordination of laws. In ‘A Study of Statelessness’, it was stated that “the absence of general rules for the attribution of nationality and the discrepancies between the various national legislations constitute the permanent source of statelessness.”45 Scholars distinguished between two kinds of statelessness, i.e. original or absolute statelessness and subsequent or relative statelessness. In the case of absolute statelessness, the stateless person has not acquired any nationality at birth or thereafter, whereas in the case of relative statelessness, the stateless person did acquire a nationality at birth, but lost it in the course of his life without acquiring another.46 Conflicts of laws were identified as the cause of absolute statelessness, resulting from the two distinct systems of nationality laws throughout the world.47 In systems operating on the basis UNGA ‘Elimination or reduction of future statelessness’ (4 December 1954) UN Doc A/RES/896(IX), para. 2. 38 Weis, ‘The United Nations Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, 1961’ (n 26), 1078-1080. 39 Eli Lauterpacht (ed), International Law: Being the Collected Papers of Hersch Lauterpacht (Cambridge University Press 1970), Vol. 2, Part 1, 489-490. 40 Erwin Loewenfeld, ‘Status of Stateless Persons’ (1941) 27 Transactions of the Grotius Society 59, 59. 41 Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees ‘Statelessness and Some of Its Causes’ in Basic Legal Documents (1947), 2. 42 ibid. 43 Siegelberg (n 10), 168. 44 Michelle Foster and Helene Lambert, ‘Statelessness as a Human Rights Issue: A Concept Whose Time Has Come’ (2016) 28 International Journal of Refugee Law 564, 567. 45 United Nations Ad Hoc Committee on Refugees and Stateless Persons ‘A Study of Statelessness’ (1 August 1949) UN Doc E/1112, E/1112/Add.1. 46 ILC ‘Report on Nationality, Including Statelessness by Mr. Manly O. Hudson, Special Rapporteur’ (1952) Yearbook of the International Law Commission 1952, Vol. 2, 17; Weis, ‘Statelessness as a legal political problem’ (n 13), 4. 47 ILC ‘Report on Nationality, Including Statelessness by Mr. Manly O. Hudson, Special Rapporteur’ (1952) Yearbook of the International Law Commission 1952 ,Vol. 2, 17-18; Weis, ‘Statelessness as a legal political problem’ (n 13), 4-5. 37 European University Institute 5