YALE HUMAN RIGHTS & DEVELOPMENT L.J. 2017] The Risk of Statelessness VOL. XIX 61 committed to protect stateless persons. This may have been a reflection of the perception of the international community that statelessness was not as pressing a problem as refugee protection. It may also have been a reflection of the disinclination of states to regulate matters concerning nationality with international law, even in the context of international protection. Regardless, by the time the international community returned to the work of statelessness with the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness (1961 Convention), few states had demonstrated their willingness to combat statelessness by ratifying the 1954 Convention. Nonetheless, the 1961 Convention picked up where the 1954 Convention left off and provided an international framework for states to coordinate domestic nationality laws to prevent persons from becoming stateless. The object and purpose of the 1961 Convention is for states to develop their nationality laws in a manner consistent with the “international norms relating to the protection of the right to nationality, including the principle that statelessness should be avoided.”82 The 1961 Convention aims to protect against statelessness in a variety of circumstances, and provides important rules for nationality acquisition, deprivation, and renunciation.83 Perhaps the greatest focus of the 1961 Convention is to guarantee everyone’s right to a nationality, and it gives particular emphasis to the rule that that all persons must acquire a nationality at birth.84 Together, the 1954 and 1961 Conventions set forth a framework of international obligations to provide status to stateless persons and prevent the problem from reproducing itself. However, like the 1930 Nationality Convention that preceded them, both conventions were plagued by low levels of ratification. By 1980, the 1954 Convention had garnered only thirty-one ratifications, and the 1961 Convention only ten.85 As was the case with the 1930 Convention, low levels of ratification were likely expressive of the disinclination of states to cede their sovereign authority over matters relating to nationality. There was a shift in the 1990s, at least in terms of the global awareness of the problem of statelessness, with the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the Yugoslav Republic. In many of the successor states that began to form, ethnic conflicts developed as ethnic majority groups used nationality as a 82. UNCHR, Introductory Note to the Text of the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, at 3 (May 2014), http://www.unhcr.org/ibelong/wp-content/uploads/1961Convention-on-the-reduction-of-Statelessness_ENG.pdf [https://perma.cc/RM6K-FSB3]. 83. 1961 Convention, supra note 16, arts. 4-7. 84. Id. art. 1. See also UNHCR, Guidelines on Statelessness No. 4: Ensuring Every Child’s Right to Acquire a Nationality through Articles 1-4 of the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, U.N. Doc. HCR/GS/12/04 (Dec. 21, 2012) [hereinafter UNHCR Guidelines on Statelessness No. 4] (“Articles 1-4 of the 1961 Convention principally concern acquisition of nationality by children. The cornerstone of efforts to prevent statelessness among children is the safeguard contained in Article 1 of the 1961 Convention.”). 85. See Status of the 1954 Convention, supra note 81; UNTC, Chapter V: Refugees and Stateless Persons, 4. Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/MTDSG/Volume%20I/Chapter%20V/V-4.en.pdf [https://perma.cc/95HB-FVMV] [hereinafter Status of the 1961 Convention]. Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3111529