2018] NATIONALITY AND DEFINING “THE RIGHT TO HAVE RIGHTS” S865 stateless persons’ status and help stateless persons resettle. 56 Recognition of statelessness as an international issue necessitated recognition of nationality practice as an international issue. In 1924, the ILA’s Committee on Nationality, by way of a model statute and model treaty provisions, began proposing longterm changes in nationality practice. 57 The model statute proposed that nationality be extended on the basis of jus soli; 58 this, scholars believed, would reduce the incidence of stateless birth to displaced parents. 59 The model statute further proposed that individuals not lose their nationality without acquiring the nationality of another State. 60 The model treaty provisions explained how the contracting parties should consider denationalized or stateless individuals. Though the Committee discussed and sought to promulgate rules regarding the extension of nationality, it did not define nationality or its implications at length. Three years later, the Eighth Assembly of the League of Nations adopted a resolution calling for the codification of international law pertaining to nationality. 61 Codification on the subject was considered “material for the progress of justice and the maintenance of Refugees, July 5, 1922, 13 L.N.T.S. 355; Arrangement of 12 May 1926 Relating to the Issue of Identity Certificates to Russian and Armenian Refugees, May 12, 1926, 89 L.N.T.S. 2004; Arrangement of 30 June 1928 Relating to the Legal Status of Russian and Armenian Refugees, June 30, 1928, 89 L.N.T.S. 2005. 56. Norman Bentwich, The League of Nations and Refugees, 16 BRIT. Y.B. INT'L L. 114, 115 (1935). Fifty-one States ratified the treaties giving rise to Nansen passports. Resettlement options in those fifty-one States were available to stateless persons. Reale, supra note 48, at 507. 57. Report of the Committee on Nationality and Naturalization, supra note 54 at 28. 58. Id. at 29. 59. Id. at 91. 60. In other words, a State would only be able to divest a national of his or her legal affiliation if that national had successfully obtained the nationality of another State through, as an example, application after marrying a foreign spouse or immigrating. Id. at 31. 61. Resolution of September 27, 1927, League of Nations Official Journal, Special Supplement No. 53, at 9. Prior to the adoption of this resolution, the Committee of Experts of the League of Nations for the Progressive Codification of International Law had produced a preliminary draft of a convention on nationality. See generally Charles Hyde, The Nationality Convention Adopted by the League of Nations Committee of Experts for the Progressive Codification of International Law, 20 AM. J. INT’L L. 726 (1926). A research committee of Harvard Law School faculty would build on this preliminary draft to produce the 1929 Draft Convention on Nationality. See generally Francis Deak, Review: Research in International Law, Draft Conventions on Nationality, Responsibility of States, Territorial Waters by: League of Nations, Conference for the Codification of International Law, 30 COLUM. L. REV. 142 (1930). Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2954729