reforming nationality laws to account for foundlings (Razali) or
improved safeguards in relation to renunciation of citizenship in crossborder marriages (Kneebone).
However, there is now appreciation of the fact that discrimination is
far more likely to underpin such ‘gaps’, and indeed discrimination in the
implementation of nationality laws is a major factor in the cause of largescale statelessness globally. Such discrimination can be embedded in the
way nationality laws are drafted but more often than not discrimination
manifests in the unequal application of laws and implementation of
regulations in practice. The definition of a stateless person under the
1954 Convention ostensibly accounts for this fact – by drawing attention
to the ‘operation’ of nationality laws.92 The contributions to our volume
further highlight the multifaceted nature through which discrimination
materializes in states’ administrative and bureaucratic practices.
Recent scholarship has also emphasized the pivotal role of racial
discrimination as both a cause and consequence of statelessness. Foster
and Baker note the many cases where nationality laws have a racially or
ethnically discriminatory basis.93 As they observe, racialized citizenship
often intersects with gender or religious discrimination, and can manifest
both directly and indirectly.94 Similarly, in Asia, significant grounds of
discrimination relate to gender and race, but also religion. The fact that
so many states retain explicit gender-discriminatory nationality laws –
including Brunei, Malaysia and Nepal in the region – means that much
attention has been (understandably) focused on instances of direct
discrimination.
Furthermore, gender discrimination in nationality laws may manifest
differently across jurisdictions and populations, as is highlighted in
Kneebone’s chapter in this volume on marriage migration to East Asia.
This nuanced and original contribution reveals how ‘laws and policies on
nationality, in both Korea and Taiwan, both include and exclude the
UNHCR, ‘Guidelines on Statelessness No 1: The Definition of “Stateless Person” in
Article 1(1) of the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons’ (20
February 2012) UN Doc HCR/GS/12/01 <www.refworld.org/pdfid/4f4371b82.pdf.>
accessed 13 September 2023.
93
Michelle Foster and Timnah Rachel Baker, ‘Racial Discrimination in Nationality Laws:
A Doctrinal Blind Spot of International Law?’ (2021) 11(1) Columbia Journal of Race and
Law 83, 94–97.
94
At 92–93; see also David Scott FitzGerald, ‘The History of Racialized Citizenship’ in
Ayelet Shachar, Rainer Bauböck, Irene Bloemraad and Maarten Vink (eds) in The Oxford
Handbook of Citizenship (Oxford University Press 2017) 129, 130.
92
https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009399555.003 Published online by Cambridge University Press