Addressing Statelessness through ICERD nationality. 60 While this practice does not discriminate on the background of the applicant, the person could be left in limbo if his or her Togolese citizenship application gets denied. In such cases, the state party is expected to provide for a legal safeguard. Similarly, the Committee recommended Uzbekistan to adopt urgent measures to remove obstacles to granting citizenship and prevent persons from becoming stateless, in particular in the process of acquiring citizenship of the State party. 61 State Succession Equal application of citizenship legislation without discrimination on race or other grounds under art 1(1) is particularly relevant in the context of state succession. When a country splits up or an area gains independence, the new-born state or states must define themselves and their population. With the new definition of what constitutes as the state, minorities are particularly vulnerable where their heritage is associated with the parent or successor state, leaving them at risk of being deprived of nationality. 62 The Committee made reference to this specific issue in GR 30 and advised states to ‘regularise the status of former citizens of predecessor States who now reside within the jurisdiction of the State Party’. 63 In its Concluding Observations, the Committee condemned the 2011 amendment to the Sudanese Nationality Act 1994, which ‘provides for the revocation of the Sudanese nationality of those who have acquired “de jure or de facto” the nationality of South Sudan’. 64 According to the Committee, this amendment could give rise to situations in which the Sudanese government strips the citizenship of persons belonging to an ethnic group associated with South Sudan, rendering them at risk of statelessness. Therefore, the Committee recommended Sudan to ‘ensure that rules governing citizenship acquisition and deprivation apply equally to all without discrimination based on, inter alia, ethnicity and protect against statelessness’. 65 The Committee raised similar concerns on the ‘Erased’ persons (Izbrisani) in Slovenia, a group that remained without a legal status after the declaration of the country's independence in 1991 and is mostly of non-Slovene or mixed ethnicity and includes a significant number 60 61 62 63 64 65 Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, Concluding Observations on the Combined Eighteenth and Nineteenth Periodic Reports of Togo, UN Doc CERD/C/TGO/CO/18-19 (18 January 2017) [27] (‘Concluding Observations: Togo’), citing Code de la nationalité Togolaise [Code of Togolese Nationality] (1978) Ordinance No 78-34 (Republic of Togo). Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, Concluding Observations on the Combined Tenth to Twelfth Reports of Uzbekistan, UN Doc CERD/C/UZB/CO/10-12 (27 January 2020) [21]. Institute of Statelessness and Inclusion (n 1) 25. GR 30, UN Doc CERD/C/64/Misc.11/Rev.3 (n 13) [17]. Sudanese Nationality Act (Amendment) 2011 (Sudan) s 10(2). According to UNHCR, ‘the [Sudanese] decision to revoke nationality from any individual qualifying for South Sudanese nationality has left many people at risk of statelessness’. Additional difficulties that lead to the risk of statelessness are administrative challenges, lack of capacity and discrimination among public authorities, economic barriers and displacement. See A Study of Statelessness in South Sudan (Study, UNHCR 2017) 30. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, Concluding Observations on the Combined Twelfth to Sixteenth Periodic Reports of the Sudan, 86th sess, UN Doc CERD/C/SDN/CO/12-16 (12 June 2015) [19]. 231