guarantee any rights whatsoever’, namely, ‘the right to have rights’. 307 This is a strong affirmation of the right to a nationality as an entitlement, a human right, in the context of refugee law. In contrast, all other courts across the world (with some marginal differences) have focused exclusively on the effects or consequences of statelessness on the person, e.g., the denial of human rights through discriminatory acts, such as arbitrary denial of the right to enter one’s own country. This is perhaps because technically, they should enjoy stateless person status. Finally, the case law of international courts is important in complementing and strengthening our understanding of the legal issues involved. The case law surveyed in section 3 of this paper, deals exclusively with arbitrary denial or withdrawal of nationality from a human rights law perspective; it is not concerned with refugee status. However, as a human rights treaty, the 1951 Refugee Convention calls for an interpretation that is at least in harmony with this case law, in cases relating to arbitrary deprivation of nationality. This case law suggests that international and regional courts have actively contributed to the changing notion of ‘nationality’. There is now growing recognition by courts, the world over, that ‘nationality’ is a human right, an entitlement, in place of a privilege. The importance of this shift from State’s sovereignty to a human right is critical for stateless persons because if in theory stateless persons are meant to benefit from the fundamental human rights embodied in international law, in practice ‘nationality’ (or a citizenship status) remains the gateway to enjoyment of these rights.308 6 CONCLUSION Twenty years later, Goodwin-Gill’s statement that ‘State practice confirms that stateless persons were not to be ignored as refugees’ remains valid.309 This paper has examined claims to refugee status based on arbitrary deprivation of nationality in relation to the 1951 Refugee Convention (and 1967 Protocol). Thus, it has dealt mainly with the third (or last) cause of statelessness as identified by UNHCR, namely, discrimination and arbitrary deprivation of nationality. In any such situation, discrimination is often both a cause of statelessness (i.e., the arbitrary deprivation of nationality or act of denationalization) and an effect of statelessness on the person (i.e., the denial of human rights through discriminatory acts against stateless persons).310 A correct approach to assessing whether discrimination and arbitrary deprivation of nationality amounts to persecution on Mendoza-Martinez, 372 U.S. at 161, quoting Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951) 294. Colin Harvey, ‘Is humanity enough?’, p.88. 309 Guy S. Goodwin-Gill, ‘Stateless Persons and Protection under the 1951 Convention or Refugees, Beware of Academic Error!’ (December 1992), texte présenté au Colloque portant sur ‘Les récents développements en droit de l’immigration’, Barreau de Québec, 22 janvier 1993, at p.7. 310 UNHCR has referred to the ‘erased persons’ from Slovenia as being subjected to discrimination in two respects: the decision to erase them targeted a specific group of foreigners only, namely the citizens from the SFRY; many of the erased faced discriminatory treatment because of a lack of legal status. UNHCR Submission in Kuric, para.4.2.6. 307 308 54