“considerations such as the person’s links with the State, including the length of time that has elapsed between acquisition of nationality and discovery of fraud also need to be taken into account.” The Human Rights Council report points to a good practice adopted by “many states” to “limit … the period following acquisition of nationality within which it may be withdrawn if fraud or misrepresentation is established.”97 Thus, the fact that U.S. law allows for denaturalization in cases of fraud is not per se contrary to international law. However, the lack of a mechanism for assessing the proportionality of the measure in a particular case, and the lack of a statute of limitations in civil cases (and the existence of a lengthy statute of limitations in criminal cases), conflict with international standards as expressed by the Human Rights Council. Further factors relevant to the assessment of the impacts of loss of nationality are explored in the next section. Scrutiny of Impacts While scrutiny of the purpose of deprivation of nationality provides one major restraint, another can be found in scrutiny of the impacts of such deprivation. In examining the impacts, particular attention must be given to the threats posed by discrimination and statelessness. Prohibition on discrimination. An important indication of arbitrariness in the conception or application of nationality legislation is the presence of discrimination.98 Both the International Covenant on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD), in Article 5(d) (iii),99 and the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness (discussed below), Article 9, prohibit discrimination in the construction and application of nationality law. Article 2(1) of the ICCPR requires that states “protect and ensure” rights protected under the covenant (including Article 24(3), covering children’s nationality, examined below) “without distinction of any kind.”100 Scholars have noted that deprivation of nationality is applied unequally, being used more frequently against naturalized citizens.101 The law of the United States, in effect since the availability of expatriation was restricted following Trop and Afroyim, reflects this pattern. The tension regarding the seemingly equal citizenship between naturalized citizens and U.S.-born citizens under the Fourteenth Amendment on one hand, and the availability of criminal and civil denaturalization on the other is considered in more depth in Chapter II. In 2018, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, Tendayi Achiume, presented a report to the U.N. General Assembly raising acute concerns regarding the appropriation of nationality and immigration law in furtherance of increasingly racist, patriarchal, and xenophobic ideologies. Achiume identified instances where such ideologies are finding expression in the government, policies, and practices of Member States.102 The Special Rapporteur also called I. History and Context 31