Forthcoming in the Max Planck Yearbook of United Nations Law (27) the legal consequences of this modality of territorial transfers on nationality matters 68 – which differed fundamentally from those other issues. While the main question raised by state succession in relation to treaties69 and public assets was whether the successor state could inherit rights and obligations possessed by the predecessor state, the situation of the inhabitants of territories affected by changes of sovereignty also evoked serious human rights considerations.70 For instance, the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the outbreak of armed conflicts and ethnic tensions in several of its former republics left millions of individuals exposed to the risk of statelessness.71 Similarly, the breakup of the former Yugoslavia and the wars and mass atrocities that ensued laid bare the dangers of discriminatory nationality laws.72 At the same time, the lack of clear, detailed rules governing collective acquisition and loss of nationality in case of state succession created considerable uncertainty. It was against this backdrop that the ILC decided to pursue the topic with a view to clarifying the law in this area, 73 eventually leading to the adoption of the Articles on the Although nationality was originally part of the Commission’s studies on state succession under the title ‘status of the inhabitants’ which fell under the cluster ‘succession in respect of matters other than treaties’, it was later excluded given its complexity. See UN ILC, ‘Documents of the Twentieth Session, Including the Report of the Commission to the General Assembly’ in Yearbook of the International Law Commission 1968, vol. II, UN Doc. A/CN.4/SER.A/1968/Add.l, at 220–221. 69 State succession in relation to human rights treaties has important consequences for the protection of individuals, although in a different manner. See e.g., A.A. Cançado Trindade, International Law for Humankind: Towards a New Jus Gentium (2nd edn, Nijhoff 2013), at 469–477. 70 This difference had been noted by Mohammed Bedjaoui, then Special Rapporteur on ‘Succession of States in Respect of Matters Other than Treaties’: ‘[i]n all cases of succession, traditional or modern, there is in theory no succession or continuity in respect of nationality. The successor state does not let the inhabitants of the territory retain their former nationality. This is a manifestation of its sovereignty’, in UN ILC, ‘Documents of the Twentieth Session Including the Report of the Commission to the General Assembly’ in Yearbook of the International Law Commission 1968, vol. II, UN Doc. A/CN.4/SER.A/1968/Add.l, at 114. See also I. Ziemele, ‘State Succession and Issues of Nationality and Statelessness’ in A. Edwards and L. van Waas (eds), Nationality and Statelessness under International Law (Cambridge University Press 2014) 217–246. 71 See A. Zimmermann, ‘State Succession and the Nationality of Natural Persons – Facts and Possible Codification’ in P.M. Eisemann, M. Koskenniemi, and S. Maljean-Dubois (eds), State Succession: Codification Tested against the Facts (Brill Nijhoff 2000), at 627–632. 72 On these questions, see J. Pejic, ‘Citizenship and Statelessness in the Former Yugoslavia: The Legal Framework’ (1995) 14 Refugee Survey Quarterly 1, at 1–18. 73 Though initially covering the nationality of both legal and natural persons, the Commission following the suggestion of Special Rapporteur Vaclav Mikulka, decided to separate both topics, giving priority to the latter while the former was later relinquished. 68 19 Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4816199