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but notes what it believes is a critical exception of “certain limited
civil and political rights.” 10
Latvia is just one of several States that differentiate between
citizens and non-citizen nationals. Despite its strong support for
UNHCR’s efforts to end statelessness, the United States maintains
that American Samoans are non-citizen nationals, disenfranchised in
federal elections. 11 The United Kingdom differentiates between British citizens, British subjects without citizenship, and British protected
persons. 12 Mexico, Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Honduras have Constitutional distinctions between citizens and non-citizen nationals. 13 Are
all of these other non-citizen nationals stateless? 14
Statelessness turns on the presence or absence of nationality.
Determining whether a person is stateless thus requires a clear understanding of nationality as it exists in international law. The Statelessness Convention, 15 though it references nationality, does not define the term. States and scholars rarely discuss the meaning of
nationality, and there is no definitive articulation of nationality as a
matter of customary international law. Accordingly, elucidation of
the meaning and implications of nationality requires recourse to history and contemporary practice. 16 This Note, in an attempt to clarify
10. See, e.g., U.N. High Comm’r for Refugees, Rep. of the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees, U.N. Doc. A/61/12, at 22 n.16 (2006).
11. Tuaua v. United States, 788 F.3d 300, 302 (D.C. Cir. 2015); see also 8 U.S.C.
§ 1101(a)(29) (“The term ‘outlying possessions of the United States’ means American
Samoa and Swains Island.”); id. § 1408 (“[T]he following shall be nationals but not citizens
of the United States at birth: . . . A person born in an outlying possession of the United States
on or after the date of formal acquisition of such possession. . . .”).
12. Types of British Nationality, GOV.UK, https://www.gov.uk/types-of-britishnationality [https://permacc/Y2P9-NTND].
13. Constitución Política de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos, CPEUM, art. 41 base III,
Diario Oficial de la Federación [DOF] 5 de Febereo de 1917, últimas reformas DOF 10 de
Febereo de 2014 (Mex.); CONSTITUCIÓN POLÍTICA DE COLOMBIA [C.P.] arts. 96–98;
CONSTITUCIÓN POLÍTICA DE LA REPÚBLICA DE NICARAGUA [CN.] tit. III, arts. 15–22, LA
GACETA, DIARIO OFICIAL [L.G.] 9 January 1987, as amended by Ley No. 330, Jan. 18, 2000,
Reforma Parcial de la Constitución Política de la República de Nicaragua, L.G. Jan. 19,
2000; Constitución de República de Honduras de 1982 con reformas hasta 2006, tit. II, arts.
22–43; see generally Evelyn Téllez Carvajal, The Political Rights of Mexican Migrants:
Nationality and Citizenship in Mexico, 6 MEX. L. REV. 178, 186 (2013) (noting that in the
constitutions of some Latin American countries “it is common to distinguish between
nationals and citizens”).
14. See infra § III.D.1.
15. Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, Aug. 30, 1961, 989 U.N.T.S. 175.
16. Matthew Craven, Introduction: International Law and Its Histories, in TIME,
HISTORY AND INTERNATIONAL LAW 6 (Matthew Craven et al. eds., 2007); Randall Lesaffer,
International Law and Its History: The Story of an Unrequited Love, in TIME, HISTORY AND
Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2954729