448 VANDERBILTJOURNAL OF TRANSNATIONAL LAW [VOL, 46:443 responses to statelessness: the 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons (1954 Convention), and the 1961 Convention. 14 In addition, the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child obligates signatory states to ensure that every child acquires a nationality.15 Several regional human rights treaties also address statelessness, including the American Convention on Human Rights.16 The American Convention, which the United States signed in 1977 but has never ratified, states: "Every person has the right to the nationality of the state in whose territory he was born if he does not have the right to any other nationality."' 7 The 1954 Convention set out a definition of statelessness and listed a number of rights that stateless persons should have. Among other obligations under the 1954 Convention, contracting states must treat stateless persons the same as lawful aliens in that country, including access to wage-earning employment, housing, public education, and public relief.' 8 Upon request, contracting states are also obligated to issue travel and identity documents to stateless 14. See Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, Sept. 28, 1954, 360 U.N.T.S. 117 [hereinafter 1954 Convention] (seeking to expand the coverage of the term stateless individual as it was defined in 1951); see also Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, Aug. 30, 1961, 989 U.N.T.S. 175 (providing that a party to the convention must offer stateless individuals citizenship if the individual was born in its territory and would be stateless otherwise); UNHCR, TEXT OF THE 1961 CONVENTION ON THE REDUCTION OF STATELESSNESS WITH AN INTRODUCTORY NOTE BY THE OFFICE OF THE UNITED NATIONS HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR REFUGEES 3-5 (2011), available at www.unhcr.org/3bbb286d8.html (offering an introduction laying out the points of the Convention). 15. An earlier document, the Convention to Reduce the Number of Cases of Statelessness (concluded in 1973), provided that a child must be granted his or her mother's nationality if the child would otherwise be stateless. This convention has only nine member states. See Anna Dolidze, Lampedusa and Beyond: Recognition, Implementation, and Justiciability of Stateless Persons' Rights Under International Law, 6 INTERDISCIPLINARY J. HUM. RTS. L. 123, 131-32 (2011-2012) (examining the Convention's impact on children). See UNHCR, Address Before the Comm. on Juridical & Political Affairs, 16. Org. of Am. States: The Inter-American System and International Protection for Refugees, Asylum Seekers, Returnees, and Internally Displaced, Stateless and Other Persons of Concern to UNHCR: Themes of Common Interest, at 1-2, OAS Doc. No. CP/CAJP-1912/02 (noting "the Americas have been fertile ground for the adoption and development of creative and innovative regional humanitarian responses for treatment of refugees and other persons requiring protection"). See American Convention on Human Rights art. 20, § 2, Nov. 22, 1969, 17. O.A.S.T.S. No. 36, 1144 U.N.T.S. 123 (asserting that the right to nationality is universal and birthright is one way to obtain it). For a discussion of some reasons why the United States has not ratified this document, see Mark Kirk, Should the United States Ratify the American Convention on Human Rights?, 14 REVISTA IIDH 65, 78-79 (1991), http://www.juridicas.unam.mx/publicallibrev/rev/iidhlcont/14/dtr/dtr4.pdf. See 1954 Convention, supra note 14, arts. 8, 17, 21-24 (governing wage 18. earning, housing, public education, and public relief under the Convention).