2019 Statelessness & Citizenship Review 1(1) to their de jure stateless status because they have no legal claim to any of these protections (and that these rights and protections can be ‘taken away’ without warrant or right to disagree). 43 Thus, for Tucker, the most important element is the ‘legal bond’ aspect by which the state is bound to take the rights of citizens seriously: de facto citizens may face obstacles in challenging denial of rights and in correcting their statelessness. Thus, he argues, ‘by broadening the definition to include de facto statelessness … we weaken one of the only means by which we have to challenge statelessness itself’. 44 He focuses on the need for de facto stateless persons to have access to procedures to assert their rights. Katherine Tonkiss has argued that the conflation between (international) nationality and municipal citizenship has perpetuated the occurrence of statelessness. 45 Tonkiss reframes the debate by insisting that all claims for the rights of stateless persons that do not challenge the construction of citizenship as inherently linked to a national ‘imaginary social category of membership’ are selfdefeating. 46 This perspective is important in that it adds a new element to the discussion that allows for a critical approach to how states construct their citizenship laws, and what these constructions might mean for persons that may not have what is perceived as a legitimate attachment to a given state. While not necessarily arguing for a rejection of the nation state (or nationality) concept, Tonkiss’ reframing proposes an alternate approach to statelessness that views national identity as important to the meaning of ‘nationality’. This begs the question of how an individual that may have ties to more than one nationality might self-identify or be legally classified, that is, she reminds us of another issue which the statelessness debate needs to cover, namely the issue of dual-nationality. These issues of national identity and dual citizenship or nationality are also very pertinent to our Vietnamese case study of children of returned marriage migrants. Further, as we discuss in this article, the concept of nationality, or citizenship, in socialist Vietnam incorporates the institution of household registration or ho khau. Lack of household registration results in lack of effective protection for many in this cohort. Our case study involves children with ‘ineffective’ nationality: they may have the foreign nationality of their father but are currently residing in their mothers’ state of nationality or citizenship: Vietnam. As children, they have a higher level of vulnerability as migrants that at present is not being addressed. Further, in the case of children the issues of nationality and identity are intertwined. The Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989 (‘CRC’), 47 arts 7 and 8, contain provisions which collectively confer independent rights of nationality and identity upon a child which are particularly important to those born to an international marriage. CRC art 7(1) creates a right of a child to be registered and named from birth, and the right to acquire a nationality. The objective of this provision as art 7(2) suggests, is to prevent statelessness, but art 7(1) also refers to the ‘right to know and be cared for by his or her parents’ — ‘as far as possible’. It has been 43 44 45 46 47 Tucker (n 39) 281. ibid. Katherine Tonkiss, ‘Statelessness and the Performance of Citizenship-As-Nationality’ in Tendayi Bloom, Katherine Tonkiss and Phillip Cole (eds), Understanding Statelessness (Taylor & Francis 2017) 241. ibid. Convention on the Rights of the Child, opened for signature 20 November 1989, 1577 UNTS 3 (entered into force 2 September 1990). 76