56 ANDREJEVA v. LATVIA JUDGMENT – SEPARATE OPINION The Court could have paid attention to another principle in international law set forth by the International Court of Justice in the Namibia case. It could have looked at the transitional provisions of the Latvian law with a view to determining whether the measure took the interests of the whole population sufficiently into consideration (see Namibia, cited above, § 125). Once again, it is important to keep in mind that everyone in Latvia receives a basic pension and that there is a scheme of other social benefits applicable to all, without any distinction on the basis of nationality. 38. Furthermore, even as a matter of Convention law and general human rights law, the distinction in the Latvian State Pensions Act does not automatically mean that there is discrimination (see Carson and Others, cited above). It is to be noted that the United Nations International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination specifically provides in Article 1 § 2 that it does not apply to “distinctions, exclusions, restrictions or preferences made by a State Party to this Convention between citizens and non-citizens”. It is true that the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has construed this exception strictly but none of the developments in human rights law, including the European Convention on Human Rights, have abolished the sovereign right of a State to impose distinctions between citizens and non-citizens in so far as their purpose or effect contains no element of discrimination based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin (see K. Boyle and A. Baldaccini, “A Critical Evaluation of International Human Rights Approaches to Racism” in S. Fredman, Discrimination and Human Rights. The Case of Racism, Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 155; see also point 9 above). There is certainly plenty of State practice where relevant distinctions are drawn in a number of areas of life. C. Tomuschat has noted that “concerning social rights, national laws normally draw many distinctions which a layperson in that field cannot easily review as to their justification” (see C. Tomuschat, “International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966)”, in online Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law, § 28). The Court has correctly been careful and has held that States enjoy a wide margin of appreciation in determining their social and economic policies. 39. In cases which do not raise issues of State succession or State continuity, the Court’s approach is that very weighty reasons should exist for any distinction based on nationality (see paragraph 87 of the judgment). It is certainly in line with the Court’s role to maintain the same approach in instances which arise in State succession or State continuity contexts. However, in such cases, for all the above reasons, the Court has to accept that the particular context is an important justification for the necessary distinctions (see Kuna v. Germany (dec.), no. 52449/99, ECHR 2001-V). Justifications for the distinction, even if they go back to the history of the