2020 Statelessness & Citizenship Review 2(1) Today, with profound improvements in telecommunications, and far more financial and logistical resources, it is realistic for international organisations to aim to facilitate frequent and consistent collaboration between activists in the 50 countries where GDNL persists. In honouring the work of international activists a century ago, and to foster the work of national activists today, activists from each country could be brought together on an annual basis to develop their ideas for global action against GDNL. 124 Furthermore, not only is collaboration needed across countries affected by GDNL, but wider attention to the issue — sometimes lacking among feminist allies in other areas of scholarship and activism — is sorely required. Drawing on campaign tactics by, and receiving support from, prolific global feminist activist groups, such as the reproductive rights movements, could help widen awareness on the issue. 125 Overcoming Opposition Opposition to citizenship equality is deeply rooted in history: Napoleon’s establishment of nationality through male lineage shows us as much. This eighteenth century law was based on the notion that loyalty is extended only through a male bloodline. The Napoleonic sentiment is reflected today in twentyfirst century Nepal. Grossman and Dennis argue that resistance to allowing women to pass on their nationality in Nepal is embedded in ‘the real and potential coupling of Nepali women and Indian men whose children would further “Indianize” Nepal’. 126 The assumption here is that if a child has an Indian father — even if that child grows up in Nepal with a Nepali mother — the child’s loyalty will always be only to that of his or her father’s country, India. Eradicating GDNL in Nepal today is thus a battle against a very old, deep-rooted, paranoia. The history of GDNL campaigns also reveals how one of the equality campaigners’ earliest opponents is, today, ironically held in high esteem in statelessness history. As noted, Manley O Hudson’s work at the International Law Commission led to the definition of a stateless person in the 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons (the ‘1954 Statelessness Convention’). However flawed the definition remains today, 127 Hudson’s position in statelessness history could, at face value, be counted as honourable. Yet, we have seen in his refusal to advocate for women’s equal nationality rights, especially in the US, that Hudson’s track record appears less noble. It raises the question as to 124 The first ever global meeting of the Global Campaign for Equal Nationality Rights took place in Istanbul in 2019. Civil society leaders from Africa, the Caribbean, the Middle East, South Asia and Southeast Asia were in attendance: see ‘A Call for Urgent Action to End Gender Discrimination in Nationality Laws: Governments Contradict Their Pledges to Gender Equality’, Global Campaign for Equal Nationality Rights (Web Page, 2 May 2019) <https://equalnationalityrights.org/news/96-end-gender-discrimination-in-nationality-globalstatement-2019>. 125 See, eg, Nosheen Iqbal, ‘Women around the World March against Austerity and Violence’, The Guardian (online, 20 January 2019) <https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/19/womens-march-london-against-austerityprotesters-worldwide>; Ciara Kenny, ‘March for Choice Goes Global with Protests Planned for 25 Cities’, The Irish Times (online, 19 September 2016) <https://www.irishtimes.com/march-for-choice-goes-global-with-protests-planned-for-25cities-1.2796837>. 126 Barbara Grossman-Thompson and Dannah Dennis, ‘Citizenship in the Name of the Mother: Nationalism, Social Exclusion, and Gender in Contemporary Nepal’ (2017) 25(4) Positions 795, 796. 127 Cf Michelle Foster and Hélène Lambert, International Refugee Law and the Protection of Stateless Persons (Oxford University Press 2019) 107. 60