Addressing Statelessness through ICERD may lead to a risk of statelessness’, however, did not mention its context. 73 The Committee has not referred to the right to nationality specifically in relation to the fight against terrorism in recent communications. The Committee raised its concern during Kenya’s Concluding Observations about ‘reports that counterterrorism initiatives to combat the Somali militant group Al-Shabab, including ethnic profiling of certain ethnic groups, have resulted in human rights violations’. 74 This would suggest that, as long as counter-terrorism measures are applied without discrimination, this would not fall under the mandate of the Committee. Following GR 30, the Committee has repeatedly made clear that arbitrary deprivation of nationality is a breach of the ICERD and has consistently applied this by condemning deprivation of nationality. Yet, states can revoke citizenship on an individual basis if that revocation is not discriminatory. States that automatically revoke a person’s citizenship when that person acquires a second nationality, provided that this is not done on a discriminatory basis and that the person can effectively enjoy his or her ‘new’ nationality, are not in violation of the ICERD. Although the Committee has not specifically referred to the need for safeguards to prevent statelessness, the line between compliance and violation of art 5(d)(iii) is drawn very clearly at the equal application of such practices. States have an obligation to ensure that there is no discriminatory agenda behind revocation of nationality, when it is done for an otherwise legitimate reason. 75 ACQUISITION OF NATIONALITY As with deprivation of nationality, political and discriminatory motivations can play a big part in access to citizenship and naturalisation. 76 In some cases, discrimination can be direct, when states — trying to build a national identity partially or fully based on a particular ethnicity — include ethnicity in their citizenship legislation. In other cases, public authorities and civil servants could hold personal prejudices where it is not official state policy or legislation to discriminate on race or ethnicity. This Part will provide an analysis of what the Committee has said regarding discrimination related to access to citizenship or naturalisation, but will also look at the role of gender discrimination. As previously mentioned, the Committee does not look at racial discrimination in isolation, but looks more broadly at the intersections with other groups. This is most explicitly so for the intersection with gender discrimination. In 2000, it adopted a General Recommendation on the role of gender in racial discrimination and also in later documents, it emphasised the importance of this role. 77 Further than the general right to nationality under art 15 of the UDHR, a number of international human rights instruments include provisions specifically for the 73 74 75 76 77 Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, Concluding Observations on the Combined Seventeenth to Twenty-First Periodic Reports of Qatar, UN Doc CERD/C/QAT/CO/17-21 (2 January 2019) [27]–[28]. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, Concluding Observations on the Fifth to Seventh Period Reports of Kenya, UN Doc CERD/C/KEN/CO/5-7 (8 June 2017) [29] (‘Concluding Observations: Kenya’). Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, Habassi v Denmark: Opinion, UN Doc CERD/C/54/D/10/1997 (6 April 1999) [9.3]. Laura van Waas, Nationality Matters (Intersentia, Human Rights Research Series 2008) vol 29, 360. GR 25, UN Doc CERD/C/GC/25 (n 26). 233