2011] AN INTERNATIONAL LAW OF CITIZENSHIP 709 But even if the norm had been established (which, arguably, it was, after World War II),95 it did not significantly limit nationality practices as a tool of self-definition. In a sense, an expatriation requirement was yet another extension of the accepted rule that states could not reach out to claim those with whom they had no connection96— or, in the case of expatriation, no continuing connection. The rule, even as extended to expatriation, purported only to tell states whom they could not deem nationals; it neither mandated inclusion nor threatened to dilute state identity. So conceived, the rule was oriented to state perspectives. To the extent the expatriation requirement limited self-definition, it was only with respect to a marginal class of nonresidents, and then only to the extent that those individuals voluntarily secured the nationality of other states. Requiring that expatriation be available was consistent with the conflicts approach to nationality rules. True, the likes of Italy could no longer impose nationality on emigrant descendants “to the seventh generation,” as Mussolini once trumpeted.97 But such a claim necessarily stepped on other sovereign toes in a pre–human rights era. Any benefit to the individual was incidental. That perspective shifted as international norms regarding statelessness and sex discrimination came to be considered in the mid-twentieth century. Here, finally, rights became salient to nationality practices. But once again, efforts to address neither statelessness nor sex discrimination threatened to shackle state capacity for self-definition, in theory or practice, and the impact of such efforts on nationality practices was negligible. Statelessness and denationalization. International efforts to reduce statelessness were themselves initially rooted in state-oriented concerns, insofar as statelessness created “friction between States.”98 Although a less constant irritant to interstate relations than dual nationality, statelessness sometimes posed a threat to state interests—for example, when a state found large numbers of aliens in its midst who had been denationalized by, and were thus not returnable to, another country.99 Statelessness also challenged the international legal system by creating a class of individuals for whose conduct no state would stand responsible, thereby presenting, in theory at least, a gap in the enforceability of international law. But the disadvantages of statelessness from the individual’s perspective were apparent. Interwar commentators deplored the consequences of statelessness for individuals. Those without nationality, it was lamented, were at the mercy of their hosts. “As far as the law of nations is concerned, apart from morality, there is no restriction whatever to cause a State to abstain from maltreating to any extent such stateless individuals.”100 In an effort to reduce the incidence of statelessness, the Hague Convention provided that states be permitted to deprive a woman of her nationality upon marrying a 95 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, G.A. Res. 217(III)A, Art. 15 (Dec. 12, 1948) (“[n]o one shall be . . . denied the right to change his nationality”); see also, e.g., WEIS, supra note 13, at 137 (practice has “restricted the right of States to refuse release from their nationality on acquisition of a new nationality”). 96 See supra text accompanying notes 14 –18. 97 John H. Wigmore, Domicile, Double Allegiance, and World Citizenship, 21 U. ILL. L. REV. 761, 764 (1927). 98 WEIS, supra note 13, at 162. For contemporary articulations along the same lines, see COMMISSION ON HUMAN SECURITY, HUMAN SECURITY NOW 30 –33 (2003), at http://ochaonline.un.org/Reports/tabid/2186/ language/en-US/Default.aspx, and Jelena Pejic, The International Legal Aspects of Citizenship, 3 CROAT. CRITICAL L.R. 303, 313 (1998). 99 CATHERYN SECKLER-HUDSON, STATELESSNESS: WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE UNITED STATES 251 (1934); see also BOLL, supra note 4, at 102 (noting “incentive for states to promote the development of international norms that prevent states from rejecting or abandoning their nationals in a way that has negative repercussions on other states”). 100 1 L. OPPENHEIM, INTERNATIONAL LAW 522 (4th ed. 1928). This content downloaded from 82.196.111.31 on Thu, 07 Oct 2021 15:20:30 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms