A/HRC/25/28 I. Introduction 1. In its resolution 20/5, the Human Rights Council requested the Secretary-General to prepare a report on legislative and administrative measures that may lead to the deprivation of nationality of individuals or groups of individuals, paying particular attention to situations where persons affected may be left stateless. The Council requested that information in this regard be collected from States, United Nations agencies and other relevant stakeholders. Such information was received from 33 States,1 as well as from 22 United Nations agencies and non-governmental organizations.2 2. The Human Right Council has addressed the enjoyment of the right to a nationality and the avoidance of statelessness in several resolutions on the arbitrary deprivation of nationality. The Council has considered situations in which a person’s enjoyment of his or her nationality is interrupted through withdrawal, as well as situations in which a person is arbitrarily denied the right to obtain a nationality.3 In the context of the Council’s approach to the question of arbitrary deprivation of nationality, the present report considers legislative and administrative measures that may lead to the automatic loss of nationality or that form the basis for an administrative or judicial decision to deprive a person of his or her nationality, as well as those measures that may arbitrarily preclude a person from obtaining a nationality. As requested by the Council, the report pays particular attention to situations where such measures may leave a person stateless. The report includes a brief analysis of legislative and administrative measures taken by States to prevent childhood statelessness. It also considers the question of due process in the context of deprivation of nationality, and comments on the importance of and procedures for acquiring documentation attesting nationality. II. Loss or deprivation of nationality 3. While almost all States stipulate in their laws the conditions under which a person would cease to be a national thereof,4 the terminology used varies. A common approach, which is applied in the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, is to refer to “loss” with regard to the automatic lapse of nationality, ex lege and without State interference, and “deprivation” for administrative and judicial acts of competent national authorities invoking a stipulation of the nationality law to withdraw nationality. While “loss” and “deprivation” cover two distinct processes, they both lead to the same outcome: the person concerned is no longer considered a national by the State, and if he or she does not hold another nationality, this leads to statelessness. The distinction between loss and deprivation is not always clear, as where one State provides for the automatic loss of 1 2 3 4 Argentina, Benin, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Burkina Faso, Colombia, Costa Rica, Denmark, Egypt, Gabon, Ghana, Grenada, Guatemala, Hungary, Indonesia, Islamic Republic of Iran, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, Mexico, Republic of Moldova, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Qatar, Romania, Russian Federation, Serbia, Syrian Arab Republic, Togo, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, United States of America and Uruguay. All of these contributions are gratefully acknowledged and have been taken into consideration in the compilation of the present report. Reference to the practice of an individual State is provided as an illustrative example only and does not reflect an exhaustive analysis of State practice. A/HRC/13/34, para. 23. A person may also voluntarily initiate the loss of his or her nationality, by way of renunciation. However, this falls outside the scope of arbitrary deprivation of nationality (see A/HRC/13/34) and is not considered in the present report. 3