438 Melbourne University Law Review [Vol 40:401 citizenship had been revoked, rendering her stateless. Quoting the US Supreme Court, the Court stated that ‘[t]he essence of denationalization is “the total destruction of the individual’s status in organized society”’,195 and held that ‘because denationalization that results in statelessness is an extreme sanction, denationalization may be per se persecution when it occurs on account of a protected status such as ethnicity.’196 Nevertheless, an examination of jurisprudence in Australia, Belgium, Germany, New Zealand, Spain and the United Kingdom yields the conclusion that the practical consequences of deprivation of nationality are generally key to the assessment whether that act amounts to persecution (rather than mere discrimination).197 Therefore, ‘courts tend to focus on the effects or consequences of statelessness on the person (eg, the denial of human rights through discriminatory acts) as these are easier to measure in terms of severity.’198 In line with such jurisprudence,199 some Australian decisions have accepted that the discrimination faced by an applicant as a result of being stateless in the country of former habitual residence was sufficient to amount to persecution.200 In other cases, however, the discrimination faced by stateless persons in the country of former habitual residence together with the cumulative effect of the applicant’s individual circumstances were considered to constitute persecution.201 195 Ibid 974 (Judge Moore), quoting Trop v Dulles, 356 US 86, 101 (Warren CJ) (1958). There, Warren CJ of the US Supreme Court described denationalisation as ‘a form of punishment more primitive than torture’. 196 Stserba v Holder, 646 F 3d 964, 974 (Judge Moore) (6th Cir, 2011). 197 Lambert, ‘Comparative Perspectives’, above n 190, 51–2. 198 Ibid 56. 199 See, eg, EB (Ethiopia) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2009] QB 1, 20 [70] (Longmore LJ), in which the England and Wales Court of Appeal held that a discriminatory removal of identity documents by the state, ‘with the aim of making it difficult for [the appellant] in future to prove her nationality’, itself constituted persecution. As Lambert states, ‘the refusal of entry on ground (of lack of) nationality has been found to amount to persecution based on the violation of the right to leave and re-enter one’s country, linked closely to the arbitrary deprivation of nationality’: ibid 33. 200 1113737 [2012] RRTA 958 (25 October 2012) [100]–[102] (Member Cameron); 1108826 [2011] RRTA 1026 (5 December 2011) [62]–[63] (Member Raif); 1005911 [2010] RRTA 923 (20 October 2010) [118] (Member McIntosh); 0805551 [2009] RRTA 24 (15 January 2009) [60] (Member Roushan); 0802865 [2008] RRTA 307 (20 August 2008) [55]–[57] (Member Roushan); N05/50543 [2005] RRTA 200 (28 July 2005); N04/49992 [2005] RRTA 63 (29 March 2005). 201 1215874 [2013] RRTA 585 (26 August 2013) [141], [149] (Member Fordham); 1105010 [2011] RRTA 1066 (21 December 2011) [71], [75] (Member Mathlin); 1000094 [2010] RRTA 277 (16 April 2010) [155]–[156] (Member McIntosh); 0905729 [2009] RRTA 981