Nationality and Defining “The Right to Have Rights” Since the late 1990s, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees and scholars have suggested that legal nationality, as is relevant to the right to a nationality, comprises not only traditional rights regarding movement and access to diplomatic protection but also civil and political rights. They have equated nationality with enfranchised citizenship, identifying certain groups of non-citizen nationals as stateless. This Note reviews the history of nationality in international law and concludes that nationality and citizenship were and continue to be separate concepts. Assertions that nationality and citizenship were interchangeable concepts or have converged since the post-World War II period are not supported historically or contemporarily by widespread and consistent State practice and opinio juris. Having reached this conclusion, this Note then discusses the prudence of opaquely progressively developing the law and of internationalizing citizenship. INTRODUCTION .............................................................................. S856 I. WORLD WAR I AND THE RISE OF TREATY REGIMES FOR NATIONALITY ............................................................... S859 A. Pre-World War I State of the Law .............................. S860 1. Regulation in Municipal Law ................................ S860 2. What It Meant to Have a Nationality .................... S861 B. The Challenges of War and Nationality: World War I ................................................................ S862 C. Changes in Practice and New Regulations in International Law ........................................................ S864 1. What It Meant to Have a Nationality .................... S867 2. Nationality and Diplomatic Protection .................. S868 II. WORLD WAR II AND THE CRYSTALLIZATION OF Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2954729