2018] NATIONALITY AND DEFINING “THE RIGHT TO HAVE RIGHTS” S859 the law as regards statelessness, investigates the historical development of nationality as an international legal concept. This Note identifies three inflection points in the history of nationality in international law. Section I identifies World War I as a first inflection point, after which nationality practice moved from regulation exclusively under municipal law to regulation under treaty law. Section II identifies World War II as a second inflection point, after which the international community announced the right to a nationality, as a matter of customary international law, and defined the contours of that right. Section III identifies the end of the Cold War as a third and final inflection point—but questions whether the new law announced by UNHCR and scholars reflects an actual shift in customary international law rather than a progressive development effort. I. WORLD WAR I AND THE RISE OF TREATY REGIMES FOR NATIONALITY The concept of nationality dates back to some of the earliest scholarship on international law. Vattel described nationality as “le lien qui rattache a l’Etat chacun de ses membres,” or the link between a State and its subjects. 17 The link was defined exclusively by municipal law. Indeed, in 1907, Sir Francis Taylor Piggott declared that the extension of nationality lay “outside the domain” of international law, as there were “no elements common to the systems of all or many nations” that could serve as a basis for any general principle. 18 The municipal law concept of nationality would soon shift. World War I shocked the global system, not only with its unprecedented casualties and geographic scope, but also with its abuse and mass displacement of stateless persons. In the wake of World War I, States and scholars criticized the wartime practices that had created and exacerbated a global statelessness crisis. States subsequently concluded treaties on nationality and changed their domestic laws regarding the extension of nationality. In 1923, the Permanent Court of International Justice (“PCIJ”) pronounced that international law could regulate States’ nationality practice, either by treaty or by customary international law, should norms crystallize in future INTERNATIONAL LAW 29 (Matthew Craven et al. eds., 2007). 17. FRANCIS TAYLOR PIGGOTT, NATIONALITY INCLUDING NATURALIZATION AND ENGLISH LAW ON THE HIGH SEAS AND BEYOND THE REALM 5 (1907) (quoting Emer de Vattel) (internal citation omitted). 18. Id. at 4 (emphasis added). Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2954729