ABSTRACT
Statelessness is recognised not only as a violation of the 'right to a nationality' outlined by international human rights frameworks, but also as a root cause of additional rights abuses and threats to human security. The ways by which individuals are rendered stateless – including denationalisation, exclusionary citizenship laws, and inequalities that obstruct registration and naturalisation – often serve to discriminate against minority populations and create structural barriers to their full protection under the law. At a deeper level, there is a need to push discussions beyond thin notions of citizenship to more seriously address the question: What does it mean to be a member of a political community. That is, aside from legal nationality and the documentation that goes with it, what makes an individual recognised as a person worthy of rights within the state-centric society.
