communities. 76 Established international practice in this regard is that this is best achieved through internationalized assistance and cooperation to ensure such protection is provided to persons belonging to minorities by their state of nationality. 77 This practice is also in evidence in the history of India’s own attempts at ensuring the protection of minority rights in Pakistan, through entering a minorities agreement with that country in 1950 [NehruLiaquat Pact]. 78 As against this, it is also widely acknowledged that the practice of unilaterally seeking to protect the rights of particular minority groups, in combination with the restrictive (i.e. non-universal) formulation of this protection on the basis of a purported national kinship between said minority groups and the receiving state (e.g. as belonging to “Undivided India”), creates conditions which imperil international peace and security. 79 In the absence of any concrete attempts at pursuing the international, or even bilateral, protection of the rights of said persons belonging to minorities in these three named neighboring states, the CAA not only generates conditions that potentially threaten international peace and security in the region, it also potentially threatens the well-being of persons belonging to minorities in these three countries by espousing extra-territorial associations with them.80 E Arbitrary Deprivation of Nationality 49. While the prohibition on arbitrary deprivation of nationality derives from article 15(2) of the UDHR and is included in a number of international and regional treaties and instruments, 81 it is now broadly considered a principle of customary international law,82 binding all states; not only those state parties to relevant treaties. 76 See Mohammad Shahabuddin, Ethnicity and International Law: Histories, Politics and Practices (Cambridge University Press, 2016); Patrick Thornberry, International Law and the Rights of Minorities (Clarendon Press, 1991). 77 See Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities, GA Res 47/135, UN Doc A/RES/47/135 (adopted 18 December 1992) arts 6, 7, and 8. 78 Agreement Between the Governments of India and Pakistan Regarding Security and Rights of Minorites (Nehru-Liaquat Agreement), [1950] INTSer 9 (8 April 1950). Pallavi Raghavan, Animosity at Bay: An Alternative History of the India-Pakistan Relationship, 1947-1952 (Oxford University Press, 2020) ch 2. 79 This practice is infamously associated with the instrumentalization of the protection of the rights of ethnic German minorities by Nazi Germany, especially from 1938 onwards, which is understood to be a prominent cause underlying the outbreak of the Second World War itself. See Inis L. Claude Jr., National Minorities: An International Problem (Harvard University Press, 1955). 80 This endangerment of the well-being and security of minority communities in these neighbouring countries on account of their association with ‘national interests’ of India is well documented by the Indian Government and its security agencies in their responses before the Joint Parliamentary Committee. In fact, such threats to the lives of Hindu and Sikh communities in Afghanistan in particular, arising on account of their association with “Indian interests” in the country, was provided as a justification for including Afghanistan as one of the three countries specified by the CAA. Lok Sabha, Report of the Joint Committee on the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill 2016 (7 January 2019) 25, 28. 81 UDHR (n 22) art 15(2). See, eg. CRPD (n 12) art 18; Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness (n 14) arts 8(1), 9; CRC (n 11) art 8; American Convention on Human Rights, opened for signature 22 November 1969, 1144 UNTS 123 (entered into force 18 July 1978) art 20(3); Arab Charter on Human Rights, opened for signature 22 May 2004, 12 IHHR 893 (entered into force 15 March 2008) art 29; European Convention on Nationality, opened for signature 16 November 1997, ETS 116 (entered into force 1 March 2000) art 4. 82 See (n 40) and citations therein. 16