Addressing Statelessness through ICERD Committee centre around legislative changes, which are measurable, though its wording becomes less concrete when considering what other measures states ought to take to ensure that the elimination of racial discrimination is achieved. While the Committee is clear that states should indeed take measures to address statelessness, it could benefit from more detailed guidelines on how far states should go to ensure the right to a nationality. Building on GR 30 and consequent Concluding Observations, one suggestion that could be further fleshed out is a general recommendation specific to statelessness, as it has done on people of African descent, Roma, indigenous peoples, refugees and displaced persons. 169 Such a communication could give necessary guidance to the 182 state parties on the implementation of art 5(d)(iii) in relation to the obligations described under art 2 and, of equal importance, raise the profile of statelessness as a fundamental human rights issue spanning all corners of the globe. Discrimination lies at the heart of the world’s largest statelessness situations. Most recently, this has been demonstrated by the developments in Assam, India, where the Indian citizenship of 1.9 million people has been cast in doubt since 2019. This, on top of situations surrounding the Rohingya in Myanmar and Bangladesh, the Bidoon in the Gulf and Dominicans of Haitian descent, underscores the relation between statelessness and discrimination. Building on the past and looking to the future, the Committee can play an even stronger role in addressing this discrimination and building towards the elimination of statelessness. 169 GR 34, UN Doc CERD/C/GC/34 (n 86); GR 27, UN Doc A/55/18 (n 141); Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, General Recommendation No 23 on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, UN Doc A/52/18 (18 August 1997) annex V; GR 22, UN Doc A/51/18 (n 159). 247

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