2020 Statelessness & Citizenship Review 2(1) create or maintain a desired status quo within society. 22 To achieve it, some states arbitrarily deprive individuals belonging to ‘unwanted’ minority groups from bearing the nationality, regardless of their long-term residence or even birth in the country, and deny them the rights inherent in having a nationality. 23 Denationalisation based on racial, ethnic, religious and related grounds has been resorted to by states as a drastic form of penalty or punishment for political or historical reasons aimed at excluding national minorities. 24 History reveals how states may single out ethnic or religious groups residing in their territory considering them ‘disfavoured’, systematically discriminate against them and later exclude them from the body of citizens, often regarding them illegitimate members of society who are illegally residing in the territory of the state — rendering them stateless. 25 In their pursuit of societal bias, states can systematically draft and adopt laws and policies that strip minorities of nationality, taking away their basic rights and leaving them seemingly without the popular representation in public life that would be crucial towards the recognition of minorities and their issues, 26 as well as their ability to represent their interests. Instead of addressing public representation of minority groups by bringing them to the negotiation table (serving the long-term interests of the state by promoting an integrated society), these ruling regimes incite state sponsored hate speech against the given minority group at hand. 27 Law enforcement actors and the (dominant) majority population can feel legitimised to disrespect members of these minority groups, potentially leading to severe abuses against minority groups, and convincing them there will be no repercussions for their actions. 28 Consequently, hate speech can be very harmful in itself and especially in cases where it comes from the hierarchy of a ruling regime; it may contribute to the legitimisation of spreading hateful remarks often targeting minority groups, which 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 Eric Fripp, Nationality and Statelessness in the International Law of Refugee Status (Bloomsbury 2014) 30–31 [1.55]. Paul Weis suggests that the denationalisation of individuals as a penal measure may be traced back to Roman law, which is nonetheless a largely twentieth century phenomenon based on political and national cohesion. See Paul Weis, Nationality and Statelessness in International Law (2nd edn, Springer 1979) 117–20. See also Lindsey N Kingston, ‘Worthy of Rights: Statelessness as a Cause and Symptom of Marginalisation’ in Tendayi Bloom, Katherine Tonkiss and Phillip Cole (eds), Understanding Statelessness (Routledge 2017) 17. ibid. By doing so such ruling regimes choose to ignore the avoidance of statelessness, which has become a general principle of customary international law and therefore binding on all states — irrespective of being a state party to either of the UN Statelessness Conventions and thus violating their international legal obligations. See Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, opened for signature 28 September 1954, 360 UNTS 117 (entered into force 6 June 1960); Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, opened for signature 30 August 1961, 989 UNTS 175 (entered into force 13 December 1975). See also Kingston (n 23); Michelle Foster and Hélène Lambert, International Refugee Law and the Protection of Stateless Persons (Oxford University Press 2019). Arbitrary Deprivation of Nationality: Report of the Secretary-General, UN Doc A/HRC/10/34 (26 January 2009); European Convention on Nationality, opened for signature 6 November 1997, ETS 166 (entered into force 1 March 2000) annex (‘Explanatory Note’) [33], [34]; Council of Europe Convention on the Avoidance of Statelessness in Relation to State Succession, opened for signature 19 May 2006, CETS 200 (entered into force 1 May 2009) annex (‘Explanatory Note’) [1]. Andrew Whiteley, ‘Minorities and the Stateless in Persian Gulf Politics (1993) 35(4) Survival 28, 46. Dominic McGoldrick, ‘Accommodating National Identity in National and International Law’ in Stephen Tierney (ed), Accommodating National Identity: New Approaches in International and Domestic Law (Martinus Nijhoff 2000) 13, 16–17. Wilhelm Heitmeyer et al (eds), Control of Violence: Historical and International Perspectives on Violence in Modern Societies (Springer 2011) 489. 10