38.2 (7) TEMPROSA.DOCX38.2 (7) TEMPROSA.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2020] STATELESSNESS AS RHETORIC 1/16/2021 12:59 PM 275 relations, international law has been regarded as an ideological structure that States use to retain the status quo. 213 International law is a prime, though not the only, determinant of relative power positions between and among States.214 While international law may herald a manifest ideology (or objective), it could itself also reflect a latent, hidden ideological underpinning. 215 I claim here that ideologies latent in the text of the 1954 Statelessness Convention's definition of statelessness influence rhetors in the identification of statelessness. The causal force of ideologies works to determine the direction of the discourse, thereby removing the rhetor as the sole party deciding on matters.216 They are akin to headwinds, tailwinds, and sidewinds changing or pushing the direction of discourse. At least two ideologies do that: what I have termed formalism—form over substance of protection—and discretionism— that State discretion in nationality ascription necessarily leads to State discretion in statelessness determinations. I posit that these two ideologies affect stateless status determinations. 1. Formalism in Stateless Determinations In many stateless status determinations, from the pretense of the State as the giver of rights, the existence of citizenship on its own is sufficient 'to protect' the otherwise unprotected. As a case in point, the UK Home Office asserts that the possession of nationality (or even the possibility of acquiring a nationality) already ensures "full participation in society and [functions as] a prerequisite for the enjoyment of the full range of human rights." 217 UNHCR's guidelines likewise reinforce this notion. Despite encouraging States to examine a person's position vis-à-vis the law in practice and to veer away from a purely formalistic analysis, UNHCR merely engages States to consider whether another State's law as applied regards the person in question as a citizen. 218 And, that is enough to satisfy international standards. The non-enjoyment or absence of any entitlements that flow from citizenship is immaterial or irrelevant. People's sufferings are rendered invisible. Formalism has deep foundations, rooted in the formulation and initial conceptualization of the definition. Hannah Arendt, a stateless person and political theorist, wrote in her seminal work The Origins of Totalitarianism that the most basic of rights flowed through one's citizenship. 219 She drew the distinction 213. Scott, supra note 133, at 319. 214. Id. at 319. Scott, however, emphasized the realist paradigm's inability to adequately account for the dynamics between international law and the support of less powerful states. Id. at 324. 215. Nigel Purvis, Critical Legal Studies in Public International Law, 32 HARV. INT'L. L. J. 81, 99–100 (1991). 216. See McKerrow, supra note 143, at 236. 217. U.K. BORDER AGENCY, Home Office Instruction, supra note 175, at 5. 218. UNHCR, HANDBOOK, supra note 79, at 13. 219. HANNAH ARENDT, THE ORIGINS OF TOTALITARIANISM 277 (1951).