III. Application to statelessness at birth As noted above, several alternatives may lead to a presumption in favor of a customary international norm. This section will examine scholarly and authoritative views first, then whether rules of customary international law on child statelessness can be logically deduced from the needs of international cooperation or basic principles of international law (e.g. elementary considerations of humanity). It bears mentioning again that this author is not submitting that logical deductions can result in definitively establishing customary international law, rather that the ICJ and other authorities can conclude that logical deductions may result in a presumption that a rule of customary international law exists. In such cases, contrary practice and opinion juris may rebut the presumption. In addition to the needs of international cooperation and fundamental principles, the author will also consider concordant practice (both the consistency in treaty law but also consistency in state practice) and the collective acts of states within international organizations. There have been several other studies on related topics that, taken as a whole, imply that statelessness at birth may be prohibited and that the solution is granting nationality to stateless children born in the state’s territory. The ICJ has confirmed that birth in a territory is one of the more important connections underlying the genuine link test for nationality.30 Historically, many great scholars of public international law easily concluded that general (customary) international law secured the right to a nationality and prohibited the creation of statelessness, and many concluded that a person who is not otherwise a national of any state must be considered national of the state in which he was born. This was the conclusion of Vitoria,31 the Institute of International Law,32 the International Law Association,33 and the Harvard Research in International Law,34 and was also even the rule in the Justinian Code.35 The Human Rights Committee (HRC) has concluded similarly that birth in a territory is one of the important factors in considering whether a person has as sufficient connection to justify the right to return to that territory under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).36 All of these views opine that statelessness at birth is highly problematic, if not prohibited, and that it is the link between birth and territory that is paramount, second only to perhaps parentage, in assessing a person’s link to a state. The prohibition on statelessness might be a logical conclusion of the norms of sovereignty, and thus international co-existence. It goes without saying that every state has sovereign right to determine which individuals are its nationals.37 However, states have an obligation to not infringe the sovereignty of other states.38 Statelessness may adversely impact the states of origin and reception.39 Statelessness places undue burdens on states to deal with individuals who are not their nationals 30 See Nottebohm Case, supra at 22. See F RAN CISCI DE V ITORIA , R EFLECTIONES T HEOLOGICAE XII: D E I NDIS ET DE I URE B ELLI R EFLECTIONES (Ernest Nys, ed., Carnegie Inst., trans., 1917) cited by Int’l L. Comm’n, II YB INT ’ L L. C OMM ’ N (1953), UN Doc. A/CN.4/SER.A/1953/Add.1 (“ILC, II YB 1953 Add. 1”) 32 See I NSTITUT DE DRO IT INTERNATION AL , A NNUAIRE 131 (1896) cited by ILC, II YB 1953 Add. 1, supra note 31. 33 See INT’L L. ASSOC., REPORT OF THE THIRTY-THIRD CONFERENCE 29 (1925) cited by ILC, II YB 1953 Add. 1, supra note 31. 34 See H ARVARD L AW S CHOOL , 14 D RAFT L AW OF N ATIO NALITY (1929) cited by ILC, II YB 1953 Add. 1, supra note 31. 35 See Justinian Code, 7.62.II, cited by ILC, II YB 1953 Add. 1, supra note 31. 36 See Hum. Rts Comm., Gen. Comm. No. 17, “Article 24: Rights of the Child”, (Apr. 7, 1989) (“HRC Gen. Comm. 17”), para. 8. (“States are required to adopt every appropriate measure, both internally and in cooperation with other States, to ensure that every child has a nationality when he is born”). 37 See Convention on Certain Questions Relating to the Conflict of Nationality Laws, 1930, art. 1, 179 LNTS 89. 38 See Okonkwo v Aust., Appl. No. 35117/97, Dec. on Admiss. (Eur. Ct. Hum. Rts., May 22, 2001) (holding that the state cannot expel a (now) stateless person); Slavov v. Swed., Appl. No. 44828/98, Dec. on Admiss. (Eur. Ct. Hum. Rts., June 29, 1999) (holding the same unless the state of former nationality agrees to accept the person back). 39 See UN, A Study in Statelessness, UN Doc. E/1112; E/1112/Add.1 (1949) (“Statelessness is a source of difficulties for the reception country, the country of origin and the stateless person himself.”) 31 6 Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3091912