THE RIGHT TO NATIONALITY AFTER THE LOSS OF EFFECTIVE TERRITORY OF A STATE: INTERNATIONAL LEGAL MECHANISMS FOR THE PREVENTION OF STATELESSNESS

Abstract

Climate change and sea-level rise create a legal problem that cannot be reduced to environmental damage or physical displacement. For international law, an especially difficult question arises when a State progressively loses territory that is necessary for permanent habitation: whether the affected population can retain its nationality when residence, administration and access to official documents increasingly take place outside the territory of the State of nationality. This paper examines the relationship between continuity of statehood, nationality and the prevention of statelessness in that situation. The research uses a qualitative doctrinal methodology based on international treaties, the work of the International Law Commission, human-rights materials, recent scholarship and current international guidance on climate change and nationality. Particular attention is given to the 1954 and 1961 statelessness conventions, the 1997 European Convention on Nationality, the International Law Commission’s work completed in 2025, the 2025 International Court of Justice Advisory Opinion on climate-change obligations, Pacific research on nationality and climate mobility, and the 2026 UNHCR Global Recommendations. The analysis indicates that territorial loss and loss of nationality are legally distinct events. Continuity of statehood can provide an important legal foundation for maintaining the nationality relationship, but it does not by itself solve problems created by residence abroad, transmission of nationality to children, documentation and restrictions on multiple nationality. The paper argues that prevention should begin before displacement becomes permanent and should combine nationality-retention rules, secure civil registration, transmission safeguards, flexible approaches to dual nationality and cooperation between the affected State and receiving States