32 RAMADAN v. MALTA JUDGMENT – SEPARATE OPINION administrative authorities. States enjoy a degree of discretion with regard to the criteria governing acquisition of citizenship, but these criteria must not be arbitrary. In particular, international human rights law places a clear responsibility that the State should refrain from implementing citizenship policies that would contribute to the creation or perpetuation of statelessness. In addition to the right to citizenship, two core rights of international human rights law are also of particular relevance to statelessness and the protection of stateless persons. These are the right to equal protection by law and non-discrimination. The right to citizenship in European human rights law 7. The right to a citizenship was neither included in the Convention nor in any of the Protocols thereto. The committee which drafted Protocol No. 4 to the ECHR contemplated inserting a provision to the effect that “a State would be forbidden to deprive a national of his nationality for the purpose of expelling him”27. Although the principle which inspired the proposal was approved by the committee, the majority of experts thought it inadvisable to tackle the delicate question of the legitimacy of measures depriving individuals of nationality. It was also noted that it would be very difficult to prove whether or not the deprivation of nationality had been ordered with the intention of expelling the person concerned. In 1988 the Council of Europe’s Committee of Experts for the Development of Human Rights started examining the question of the right to a nationality as a human right and considering the possibility of inserting such right into the ECHR through an additional protocol to the Convention. However, States were not ready to adopt an additional protocol on the right to a nationality. In 1992 an expert committee on nationality initiated a feasibility study for a new, comprehensive convention on nationality. As a result, the European Convention on Nationality was adopted in 199728. 27. See Explanatory Report to Protocol No. 4, § 23. 28. The explanatory report to this Convention states that “Even if the ECHR and its protocols do not, except for Article 3 of Protocol No. 4 (prohibitions on the expulsion of nationals), contain provisions directly addressing matters relating to nationality, certain provisions may apply also to matters related to nationality questions. … Persons who have their family life in a particular country, for example having lived there for many years with their family, even if they have not been able to become a national of this country, may have the right to remain in the country if they can show that they are entitled to respect for family life under Article 8 of the ECHR. This right will be particularly important in cases in which, following State succession, a large number of persons have not acquired the nationality of the State where they reside. Concerning the prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment (Article 3 of the ECHR), actions that lower a national or alien in rank, position or reputation and are designed to debase or humiliate can be a violation of Article 3. Article 3 of Protocol No. 4 of the ECHR includes the right of nationals to enter