Statelessness & Citizenship Review 2019 1(2) the ECtHR seems to fail in offering protection under art 8 ECHR, it adopts a more nuanced position. C Legitimate Aim and Proportionality It can be questioned whether there is a legitimate aim to install such differences and whether the measures taken to attain such aim are proportional It is generally accepted that the fight against terrorism constitutes a legitimate aim. National security is also explicitly mentioned in most ECHR articles allowing for restrictions. 125 However, the question remains what the link is between deprivation of nationality and counterterrorism? States adopt and adapt nationality legislation under the notion of national security, but is this an effective counterterrorism instrument? Proportionality entails that restrictions are permissible if they are necessary in pursuit of one of the legitimate aims stated.126 If an instrument, which restricts a fundamental right, is incapable of attaining such aim, it will not be necessary and proportional. As already explained, depriving someone of their nationality allows states to expel former nationals who they deem to be a threat. Nevertheless, one may call into question the capability of such measure to protect national security. First of all, as the case of Ramadan made clear, expulsion is not an automatic consequence of deprivation of nationality.127 This decision remains at the discretion of the expelling state. The individual may, in theory, still remain in the territory of the state of their former nationality. What the individual’s status is at that point, national or non-national, is of little importance from the viewpoint of national security. Furthermore, even if expulsion would systematically be applied, would this, especially in a European Schengen-zone with no internal borders, really prevent an individual from reentering the territory? The problem of illegal migration demonstrates as no other that borders are porous. Secondly, where behaviour is subjected to denationalisation, it will generally also be covered by criminal law. For example, in Belgium, art 23 of the CBN provides denationalisation for conduct that represents ‘serious short fallings of one’s duties as a Belgian’. 128 From the few cases of denationalisation there have been in Belgium, it seems that this provision is generally applied in cases of terrorism, which is — naturally — also governed by criminal law. 129 The question then remains what the added value of the deprivation measure is; ‘removal’ by means of formal criminal justice procedures and imprisonment already separates the individual from society. One can wonder whether depriving an individual of their citizenship constitutes nothing more or nothing less than a purely symbolic punishment? An expression that a state wishes to cut its ties, legal and moral, with a particular citizen because they are no longer ‘worthy’. From the perspective of national security however, the symbolic characteristic of the measure is insufficient to provide in the aim pursued. 125 See, eg, ECHR (n 7) art 8(2), 10(2). 126 David Harris, Michael O’Boyle and Colin Warbrick, Law of the European Convention on Human Rights (Oxford University Press 2018) 12; Conor Gearty, ‘The European Convention on Human Rights and the Protection of Civil Liberties: An Overview’ (1993) 52(1) Cambridge Law Journal 89. 127 Ramadan (n 11) 113 [56]. 128 CBN (n 5) art 23. 129 See, eg, the cases of El Aroud (n 95); Belkacem (n 95). 280