428 L. van Waas, S. Jaghai international law and thereby satisfy the norm prohibiting arbitrary deprivation of nationality. States have an arsenal of counter-terrorism measures that they can apply, equally, to all citizens. As such, a change of perspective on the legitimacy, merits and wisdom of invoking citizenship deprivation—an inherently unequal measure—to ensure national security appears to be overdue. These measures need to be challenged for their discriminatory nature and effects.69 Given the wider implications that unequal citizenship has in terms of creating a suspect group within society and eroding one of the key foundations of democratic society, states should in fact be lining up to abolish the outmoded measure of casting citizens out from their own political community. Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creat​iveco​mmons​.org/licen​ses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. References Anderson B (2013) Us and them: the dangerous politics of immigration control. Oxford University Press, Oxford Barak A (2012) Proportionality, constitutional rights and their limitations. Cambridge University Press, New York Bauböck R (2015) Whose bad guys are terrorists? In: Macklin A, Bauböck R (eds) The return of banishment: Do the new denationalisation policies weaken citizenship. EUI working papers RSCAS 2015/14. European University Institute, Florence Belton K (2017) Statelessness in the Caribbean. Penn Press, Philadelphia Blitz B, Lynch M (2009) Statelessness and the benefits of citizenship. Edward Elgar, Cheltenham Brandvoll J (2014) Deprivation of nationality: limitations on rendering persons stateless under international law. In: Edwards A, van Waas L (eds) Nationality and statelessness under international law. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 194–216 Burchardt D, Gulati R (2018) International counter-terrorism regulation and citizenship-stripping laws— reinforcing legal exceptionalism. J Confl Secur Law 23:203–228 Bureau of Investigative Journalism (2016) Theresa May deprived 33 individuals of British citizenship in 2015. https​://www.thebu​reaui​nvest​igate​s.com/stori​es/2016-06-21/citiz​enshi​p-strip​ping-new-figur​esrevea​l-there​sa-may-has-depri​ved-33-indiv​idual​s-of-briti​sh-citiz​enshi​p. Accessed 30 Oct 2018 Choudhury T (2017) The radicalization of citizenship deprivation. Critical Social Policy 37:225–244 Constantine G (2015) Nowhere people. http://www.nowhe​repeo​ple.org/. Accessed 30 Oct 2018 De Hart B (2015) Regulating mixed marriages through acquisition and loss of citizenship. Ann AAPSS 662:170–187 Dearden L (2018) UK Government does not want captured Isis ‘Beatles’ returned to Britain for trial, says Gavin Williamson. Independent, 14 February 2018. https​://www.indep​enden​t.co.uk/news/uk/homenews/isis-beatl​es-uk-retur​n-trial​-gavin​-willi​amson​-defen​ce-secre​tary-gover​nment​-alexa​nda-kotey​ -el-shafe​e-a8209​741.html. Accessed 15 Nov 2018 Edwards A (2014) The meaning of nationality in international law in an era of human rights: procedural and substantive aspects. In: Edwards A, van Waas L (eds) Nationality and statelessness under international law. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 11–43 Esbrook L (2016) Citizenship unmoored: expatriation as a counter-terrorism tool. Univ Pa J Int Law 37:1274–1329 69 UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (2018) pp. 21–23. 123