The duty to avoid statelessness is “a administra.ve and other measures.”34 fundamental principle of interna.onal law”32 Regional human rights mechanisms have and has been acknowledged as an obliga.on affirmed that States’ discre.on to set the of customary interna.onal law.33 rules for acquisi.on and loss of na.onality is limited by their “obliga.on to prevent, avoid According to the UN Secretary General’s and reduce statelessness”35 and that “the Guidance Note on the UN and statelessness, power to deprive a person of his or her the avoidance of statelessness exists “as a na.onality has to be exercised in accordance corollary” to the right to na.onality itself and with interna.onal standards, to avoid the risk “States must make every effort to avoid of statelessness”.36 statelessness through legisla.ve, statelessness is that it cannot be lawfully Importantly, the burden should be on the pursued if ci.zenship depriva.on results in depriving State to ensure that statelessness statelessness. isn’t a consequence of na.onality depriva.on. This means that the person B) Prohibi:on of discrimina:on37 should already have another na.onality, and The prohibi.on of discrimina.on is one of not the hypothe.cal access to one. The the founda.onal tenets of interna.onal co n s e q u e n c e o f t h e d u t y to avo i d human rights law and relates to issues of 32 UN Human Rights Council, ‘Human rights and arbitrary depriva.on of na.onality: Report of the SecretaryGeneral’, A/HRC/25/28 (2013), para. 6 <htps://undocs.org/en/A/HRC/25/28> 33 Council of Europe, ‘Explanatory Report to the European Conven.on on Na.onality’, ETS 166 (1977), para. 33 <htps://rm.coe.int/16800ccde7> 34 UN Secretary-General (UNSG), ‘Guidance Note of the Secretary General: The United Na.ons and Statelessness’ (November 2018), p. 4 <htps://www.refworld.org/pdfid/5c580e507.pdf> 35 Case of the Yean and Bosico Children v. The Dominican Republic, Series C No. 130, Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACrtHR), (8 September 2005), para 140. See also Third Report on the Situa.on of Human Rights in Chile, IACHrtHR OEA/Ser/L/V/II.40, Doc 10, (11 February 1977), at. 80-1. 36 Anudo v Tanzania, Applica.on no. 012/2015 (Judgement) African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights (22 March 2018), para. 78. 37 Principles, Principle 6 (The Prohibi.on of Discrimina.on), see also e.g. Ar.cle 26 of the Interna.onal Covenant on Civil and Poli.cal Rights (ICCPR), Ar.cle 9 of the 1961 Conven.on and Ar.cle 5(d)(iii) of the Conven.on on the Elimina.on of All Forms of Racial Discrimina.on (CERD). 27 | Arbitrary Revoca.on of Na.onality in Bahrain - a Tool of Oppression