16 Daiva Stasiulis citizenship at birth. As discussed above, what was presented through the network of litigation of his case were several documents and conflicting evidence about the dates of termination of employment of Budlakoti’s parents with the Indian High Commission. However, it is illuminating to first examine the assumptions underlying the section 3(2) exception in the Canadian Citizenship Act to birthright citizenship and its application to the case of Budlakoti. Foreign diplomatic missions and consular posts are governed by the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, based upon principles of diplomatic immunity originating more than 3,000 years ago (Castro, 2014, p. 355). The Vienna Convention grants diplomats and their families numerous protections, including immunity from criminal and civil jurisdiction of receiving states (Castro, 2014, p. 353). The exception to birthright jus soli citizenship that excludes children born of parents who are representatives of foreign nations is widely assumed to be fair and equitable in those countries such as the United States and Canada that take this “expansive” approach to citizenship (Guendelsberger, 1992; Feere, 2011). 24 This is the “one area of solid agreement” among advocates on both side of the ongoing debate about automatic citizenship granted to children born of non-citizens (Feere, 2011, p. 1). The exemption from jus soli citizenship for children born to foreign diplomatic staff is based on the perceived unfairness of automatic recognition of this citizenship where it would confer both the rights of diplomatic immunity from criminal and civil law in the country of birth and all the benefits of birthright citizenship. In a relatively wealthy country with a robust social rights and human rights record, the gain to the diplomat’s child of acquiring the rights, benefits and opportunities of the country of birth would be substantial. The fear is that lax regulation of jus soli citizenship for a child of foreign diplomats would create a “super citizen” who not only enjoys all the benefits of birthright citizenship but whose diplomatic immunity also puts him or her above the law (Feere, 2011, p. 1). Notwithstanding the consensus on the “diplomatic exception” to children gaining jus soli citizenship, in practice, an unknown number of children of foreign mission employees “mistakenly” receive jus soli citizenship. In the U.S. context, Feere (2011, p. 2) suggests that “the limiting language in the 14th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause has been effectively rendered a nullity as a result of a lack of regulations aimed at birth certificate and SSN [Social Security Number) issuance.” His contention is that “today’s application of the Citizenship Clause is so lax that the United States has a de facto universal 24 The Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment in the U.S. Constitution provides: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” The exception regarding children born to parents who are representatives of foreign nations is based on the fact that they are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States and are therefore not to be granted U.S. citizenship (Feere, 2011, p. 1). Studies in Social Justice, Volume 11, Issue 1, 1-26, 2017