Grounds of Discrimination In the context of State succession, racial discrimination can lead to statelessness due to the failure or refusal to register minority ethnic groups. Some of the ethnic Kurds in Syria, for example, were not registered as citizens of the newly established Syrian territory after the breakup of the Ottoman Empire in the 1920s.31 Following Syria’s formal independence in 1945 and a 1962 census in the al-Hasakah province, a region inhabited predominantly by Kurds, many ethnic Kurds were registered as “Hasakah foreigners” and consequently left stateless.32 While Legislative Decree No. 49 of 2011 granted citizenship to thousands of ethnic Kurds, many of them are believed to remain stateless.33 In Kuwait, many persons of nomadic tribes native to the Arabian Peninsula were unable or unwilling to register as nationals when the country gained independence in 1961. They are commonly referred to as “Bidoon”. Beyond the context of State succession, racial discrimination in nationality laws is highly visible in Myanmar, where the 1982 Citizenship Law excluded the Rohingya from the list of ethnic groups that are eligible for citizenship and rendered them stateless.34 Ever since Myanmar enacted this Citizenship Law, the Rohingya have experienced extreme forms of persecution, and State-sponsored violence has led to loss of life and forced displacement on a large scale. In 2010, in the Dominican Republic, a new Constitution was adopted which prevented the automatic acquisition of citizenship by Dominican-born children of parents in an irregular migratory status. In 2013, the Constitutional Court’s judgment 168-13 established that only persons born in the Dominican Republic to Dominican parents or legal residents are considered to be citizens. As a result, children born in the Dominican Republic to parents with irregular immigration status were not entitled to Dominican citizenship. Without explicitly mentioning race or ethnic origins, the ruling’s retroactive application resulted in the revocation of nationality for thousands of people who were born in the Dominican Republic after 1929, most of them of Haitian descent. Racial or ethnic prejudice, even when not codified in laws, can have a serious effect on the ability to acquire nationality. Characteristics of race, ethnic origin, religion, and language can contribute to the general perception of a minority group as foreigners within a nation. This stigma can make it more difficult for them to navigate administrative procedures and undermine public support for legislation to include them as citizens. One such community is the Roma, who live primarily in Europe and whose members are at risk of statelessness. Their access to nationality has been a long-standing issue, aggravated by displacement and other effects resulting from the breakup of the former Republic of Yugoslavia.35 No State has laws specifically targeting the Roma, but racial discrimination against them in Europe can be severe and is one of the factors inhibiting their access to nationality. The CERD 31 Minority Rights Group International, Causes of Minority Statelessness, available at: http://stories.minorityrights.org/ statelessness/chapter/causes-of-statelessness. 32 Human Rights Watch, “Syria: The Silenced Kurds”, 1 October 1996, E804, available at: https://www.refworld.org/ docid/3ae6a8260.html. 33 Zahra Albarazi, “The Stateless Syrians”, 2013, Tilburg University, available at: https://www.refworld.org/pdfid/52a983124.pdf. 34 Human Rights Watch, “Discrimination in Arakan”, 2000, available at: https://www.hrw.org/reports/2000/burma/burm005-02. htm. 35 See UNHCR, No. 29, pp, 20-27. 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 9