International Legal Framework abuse. Treaties such as the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) offer additional protection. States parties to these treaties are obliged to protect the right to nationality of the groups in question through the enactment or reform of relevant laws. ICERD prohibits racial and ethnic discrimination, requiring States parties to enact or reform legislation and policies to ensure that such discrimination does not impede the right to nationality.10 Although the treaty contemplates differential treatment for citizens and non-citizens, the CERD Committee has affirmed that deprivation of citizenship due to race or ethnic origin is a breach of States parties’ obligations to ensure non-discriminatory enjoyment of the right to nationality and advised States to examine and remove discriminatory barriers to citizenship or naturalization.11 CEDAW obliges States parties to ensure women’s equal rights with regard to acquisition, transfer, change and retention of nationality.12 For women with multiple marginalized identities, discrimination compounds discrimination based on race, disability, and other factors, leading to an increased risk of rights violations. The CEDAW Committee addressed aspects of these intersectional concerns and their threat to the right to nationality in General Recommendation No. 32, urging States parties to implement CEDAW to protect women who are refugees, asylum-seekers, or stateless—categories that may themselves overlap.13 CRC, which is the most acceded-to international human rights instrument, with 196 States parties, provides that every child has the right to acquire a nationality from birth “without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion . . . or other status.”14 The CRC Committee has emphasized that States must grant nationality to otherwise stateless children born on their territory regardless of parents’ legal status, race, ethnicity, or religion, among other factors, and non-discrimination has been a principal theme in dozens of the Committee’s country recommendations related to the right to a nationality.15 10 International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, 660 UNTS 195, (ICERD), arts. 2(1), 5(d)(iii). 11 UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), CERD General Recommendation XXX on Discrimination Against Non Citizens, 1 October 2002, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/45139e084.html. 12 Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women, 1249 UNTS 13, (CEDAW), art. 9. 13 UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), General recommendation No. 32 on the gender-related dimensions of refugee status, asylum, nationality and statelessness of women, 5 November 2014, CEDAW/C/ GC/32, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/54620fb54.html. See also UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), General recommendation No. 27 on older women and protection of their human rights, 16 December 2010, CEDAW/C/GC/27, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/4ed3528b2.html, which discusses the combination of gender and age discrimination faced by older women. 14 Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1577 UNTS 3, (CRC), arts. 2, 7 and 8. 15 William Thomas Worster, “The Obligation to Grant Nationality to Stateless Children Under Treaty Law”, 2019, Tilburg Law Review 204. See also Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion, “Every Child Has the Right to a Nationality”, September 2015, p. 2. 6 U N H C R > B AC KG R O U N D N OT E O N D I S C R I M I N AT I O N I N N AT I O N A L I T Y L AW S A N D S TAT E L E S S N E S S