Sea Level Rise and Climate Statelessness Figure One: Comparative visualisation of the relative relevance of the law on statelessness in two scenarios. The reasoning at the core of this article highlights the need for a better understanding of the role of a deterritorialised state for its nationals.88 Ultimately, the benefits of statehood should be carefully weighed against its potential downsides. Indeed, while nationals of a deterritorialised LLIS are generally assumed to fall within the loose category of de facto stateless persons, this assumes a failure by the deterritorialised state to provide effectiveness to their nationality, or the impossibility of doing so. Consequently, the technical challenges faced by a deterritorialised state might eventually become the decisive factor in assessing the relevance of both statehood and the 1954 Convention for the purpose of the protection of EDPs. Alternatively, while statehood still holds an unparalleled position in international law and politics, other forms of international legal personality could allow an LLIS to maintain most of its relevant activities without needing to maintain a possibly contested claim to statehood. Example of sui generis entities such as the Holy See or the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, for instance, have been mentioned as relevant for the future of LLISs. 89 However, this is a separate 88 89 For instance, Alexander and Simon conclude that continuing to formally recognise submerged states seems desirable because it appears to prevent displaced islanders from losing their cultural identity and legal rights, but in reality we will be creating an empty fiction that may impede a long-term solution. Alexander and Simon, ‘Sinking into Statelessness’ (n 17) 25. See, eg, Alberto Costi and Nathan Jon Ross, ‘The Ongoing Legal Status of Low-Lying States in the Climate-Changed Future’ in Petra Butler and Caroline Morris (eds), Small States in a Legal World (Springer 2017) 101, 125; Burkett (n 24) 356–57; Torres Camprubí (n 12) 110– 14. 305