Neha Jain recognised as valid travel documents by the EU and other countries, similar practices of extraterritorial naturalisations by Eastern European states such as Hungary had previously prompted ad hoc efforts to develop international law norms. The 2001 Venice Commission Report on the Preferential Treatment of National Minorities by their Kin-State24 and the Bolzano/Bozen Recommendations on National Minorities in Inter-State Relations issued by the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities in 2008 both attempted to set out conditions under which states may extend preferential treatment to ethnic non-resident minorities.25 These documents emphasise that the primary responsibility for the protection of minority rights lies with the state of residence. Other states who may have an interest in their welfare can provide benefits to minorities but only with the consent of the state of residence and with full respect for the principles of sovereignty and good neighbourly relations. This would include refraining from mass citizenship conferrals even in situations where the state of residence permits dual nationality. These principles, however, have not been transformed into hard international law prescriptions. Similar to the previous case of oppressive nationality, the patchwork of international law norms that emerges to constrain nationality attribution in passportisation cases seems to emanate not from the relatively vague principles found in the international law governing nationality, but rather when this law bumps up against other stronger international law norms such as state sovereignty. And even these latter norms seem to have failed to sufficiently deter these practices. A New New Law of Nationality Writing a decade ago in the American Journal of International Law on ‘A New Law of Citizenship’, Peter Spiro asked ‘will international law colonise the last bastion of sovereignty?’26 Alas, the answer to that question is no more hopeful today than it was at the time it was first posed. If anything, citizenship, and its international twin nationality seem to have transformed into sites of “adaptive authoritarianism”,27 that is, democratic institutions that authoritarianisms mimic and retool to enhance regime survival and its reach. And not only authoritarians, but also liberal democracies seem to be complicit in its securitisation, albeit for different ends. The invasion of Ukraine that was presaged by the thousand cuts of passportisation has tested the resilience of international law in more ways than one. But it has also presented unexpected opportunities for both reaffirming long-standing international law principles,28 such as the prohibition on the use of force, and invigorating international institutions, alliances, and standard-setting in diverse areas ranging from multilateral co-operation to the law of asylum. It can and should do the same when it comes to resisting the sophisticated ways in which states can weaponise the attribution of nationality. International law has two possible ways to react to this securitised, oppressive nationality. It can beef up and more rigorously enforce international law norms on neighbourly relations, statelessness, and asylum that interact with the nationality attribution, thus preserving sovereign prerogative over questions of citizenship and nationality but strengthening the constraint that it can only be conferred in accordance with international law norms. Though this will be a welcome step that can benefit from and in turn contribute to efforts to strengthen international law norms in matters that affect nationality, it poses the risk that paralysis or setbacks in these other fields may end up delaying or even turning back any progressive agenda on nationality reform. Any such agenda will thus need to be accompanied by a willingness to ‘storm the last bastion’ to transform the international law on nationality. This will require recognising that, quite apart from its consequential impact on the individual who is ascribed a nationality, nationality attribution does not have 24 ‘Report on the Preferential Treatment of National Minorities by their Kin-State, adopted by the Venice Commission at its 48th Plenary Meeting’, Council of Europe, Doc. 168/2001. 25 ‘Bolzano/Bozen Recommendations on National Minorities in Inter-State Relations’, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (2008). 26 Spiro 2011. 27 Ginsburg T. (2020), ‘Authoritarian International Law?’, American Journal of International Law 114(2) 221-234. 28 Chachko, E. & Linos, K. (2022), ‘International Law After Ukraine: Introduction to the Symposium’, American Journal of International Law Unbound 116, 124-129. 5 Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies