ACERWC/GC/02 (2014) 5. All African States have rules providing for the conferral of their nationality5 established in their constitutions and/or in other legislation. However, these laws often do not reflect the States’ commitments to avoid statelessness established by Articles 6(3) and 6(4) of the African Children’s Charter. In addition, many African nationality laws are in conflict with basic principles enshrined in the African Children’s Charter and other human rights treaties. 6. In particular, around one dozen African states discriminate between men and women with regard to the right to confer their nationality on their children. A smaller number of African States have laws with provisions that explicitly discriminate on the basis of race, religion, ethnic group or national origin in the right of a child to a nationality from birth. A large number of States have adopted laws that provide for citizenship to be conferred at birth only on the basis of descent from a citizen, providing no rights to children who were born on the State’s territory, even if they are still resident there at majority, and even if their parents and grandparents were also born there. Such a purely descent-based system leaves substantial numbers of children at risk of statelessness. In some States where this is the general rule, there is an exception for abandoned infants or small children (“foundlings”), but some do not provide a right to a nationality in the case of foundlings, leaving unaccompanied children separated from their parents at particular risk. In some States there is also an exception providing for nationality to be given to children born in the country whose parents are stateless; but this exception does not provide for children whose parents possess a nationality but cannot transmit that nationality to their children. Due process is often not respected in the recognition, conferral and withdrawal of nationality, creating the serious risk of arbitrary decision-making in the administrative application of nationality law.6 5 Note that the countries with English as an official language often have laws that refer to “citizenship” rather than “nationality”. In the context of this General Comment and in international law, the terms citizenship and nationality are used interchangeably. 6 For background on African nationality laws, see Bronwen Manby, Citizenship Laws in 5