2018] NATIONALITY AND DEFINING “THE RIGHT TO HAVE RIGHTS” S857 Rights (“UNHCR”) estimates that there currently are over ten million stateless persons worldwide. Through its #IBelong Campaign, UNHCR seeks to end statelessness by securing a nationality for those millions of persons by 2024. 2 Non-citizen Latvians fall within the class of stateless persons identified and assisted by UNHCR. Pursuant to Latvian law, former USSR citizens situated in Latvia but not of Latvian ethnicity are entitled to “special legal status.” 3 This status differs materially from, and is expressly unequal to, citizenship. Non-citizen Latvians are neither obligated to enlist in Latvia’s compulsory military service nor entitled to participate in Latvian governance by voting or pursuing public employment. 4 Non-citizen Latvians, however, are entitled to diplomatic protection 5 and extradition 6 by Latvia, when appropriate. Latvia issues passports to its non-citizens and provides safeguards against their expulsion from the State. Barring the restrictions on political participation and public employment, Latvia guarantees its non-citizens equal protection of the law. The Constitutional Court of Latvia has stated that non-citizen Latvians are “neither citizens, nor aliens and stateless persons.” 7 In similar fashion, several scholars have written that non-citizen Latvians hold “functional Latvian nationality.” 8 UNHCR disagrees. Since its 1995 receipt of the statelessness mandate, UNHCR has classified Latvia’s roughly 336,000 non-citizens as stateless. 9 UNHCR acknowledges that the qualities of Latvian special legal status are nearly “identical to those attached to the possession of nationality” 2. See UN HIGH COMM’R STATELESSNESS 4 (2014). OF REFUGEES, GLOBAL ACTION PLAN TO END 3. David Weissbrodt, Final Report on the Rights of Non-Citizens—Regional Activities, U.N. Doc. E/CN.4/Sub.2/2003/23/Add. 2, ¶ 33 (2003). 4. Kristīne Krūma, Checks and Balances in Latvian National Policies: National Agendas and International Frameworks, in CITIZENSHIP POLICIES IN THE NEW EUROPE 63, 73 (Rainer Bauböck et al. eds., 2007). 5. Diplomatic and Consular Service Law ch. 1, sec. 2 (1995) (Lat.). 6. Krūma, supra note 4, at 79. 7. Constitutional Court of the Republic of Latvia, March 7, 2005, Case No. 2004-150106, http://www.satv.tiesa.gov.lv/web/viewer.html?file=http://www.satv.tiesa.gov.lv/wpcontent/uploads/2004/07/2004-15-0106_Spriedums_ENG.pdf#search= [https://perma.cc/ C2PQ-RJU2]. 8. See, e.g., Kristīne Krūma, supra note 4, at 70; Dimitry Kochenov, The Puzzle of Citizenship and Territory in the EU: On European Rights Overseas, 17 MAASTRICHT J. EUR. & COMP. L. 230, 239 n.58 (2010). 9. See, e.g., U.N. HIGH COMM’R FOR REFUGEES, SUBMISSION BY THE UNITED NATIONS HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR REFUGEES FOR THE OFFICE OF THE HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS’ COMPILATION REPORT—UNIVERSAL PERIODIC REVIEW: LATVIA 6 (2010). Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2954729