Forthcoming in the Max Planck Yearbook of United Nations Law (27) Nationality of Natural Persons in Relation to State Succession in 1999. 74 The twenty-six articles adopted by the Commission on second reading include both general provisions (Arts 1 to 19) and specific ones on different forms of state succession, such as where there is a transfer of part of the territory (Art. 20), unification of states (Art. 21), dissolution of a state (Art. 22– 23), or separation of part(s) of the territory (Arts 24–26).75 Also, the articles only apply to successions of states occurring in accordance with international law, therefore excluding cases of illegal annexation of territories. 76 1. The Articles on Nationality of Natural Persons in Relation to State Succession (1999) As the preamble makes clear, their Leitmotif is the avoidance of statelessness and the implementation of the – elusive – human right to a nationality in the context of state succession. According to the main rule in the said articles, individuals possessing the nationality of the predecessor state on the date of the succession will retain the right to the nationality of ‘at least one of the states concerned’.77 The latter is complemented by a duty on these states to ‘take all appropriate measures to prevent cases of statelessness stemming from state succession’.78 In fact, the wide discretion enjoyed by states in settling rules on acquisition and loss of nationality, coupled with the lack of international criteria coordinating their application, is bound to produce conflicts of laws in this domain. The exclusive but concurrent competence of states to legislate on nationality matters may allow an individual to hold, for instance, two or more nationalities, while also rendering others stateless. This tension is even more apparent in cases UN ILC, ‘Draft Articles on Nationality of Natural Persons in Relation to the Succession of States, with Commentaries’ in Yearbook of the International Law Commission 1999, vol. II (Part Two) UN Doc. A/CN.4/SER.A/1999/Add.1. 75 As explained in the commentaries, the Commission did not include a reference to newly independent states as it believed that any new cases of decolonization would invariably fall within one of those categories. See ibid., at 23. 76 UN ILC, ‘Draft Articles on Nationality of Natural Persons in Relation to the Succession of States’, at Art. 3. 77 Ibid., at Art. 1. 78 Ibid., at Art. 4. 74 20 Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4816199