nationality. International law places some restrictions on each State’s right to establish its own rules related to nationality. These include the prohibition of arbitrariness (see also Principle 7), the prohibition of discrimination (see also Principle 6) and the avoidance of statelessness (see also Principle 5). Principle 4: Basic rule PRINCIPLE 4.1. States shall not deprive persons of nationality for the purpose of safeguarding national security. 4.2. Where a State, in exception to this basic rule, provides for the deprivation of nationality for the purpose of safeguarding national security, the exercise of this exception should be interpreted and applied narrowly, only in situations in which it has been determined by a lawful conviction that meets international fair trial standards, that the person has conducted themselves in a manner seriously prejudicial to the vital interests of the state. 4.3. The exercise of this narrow exception to deprive a person of nationality is further limited by other standards of international law. Such limitations include: 4.3.1. The avoidance of statelessness; 4.3.2. The prohibition of discrimination; 4.3.3. The prohibition of arbitrary deprivation of nationality; 4.3.4. The right to a fair trial, remedy and reparation; and 4.3.5. Other obligations and standards set forth in international human rights law, international humanitarian law and international refugee law. 4.4. This basic rule also applies to the deprivation of nationality for other purposes, which serve as proxies to the purpose of safeguarding national security, as well proxy measures, which do not amount to deprivation of nationality but are likely to have a similarly adverse impact on individual rights. 22. The Principles draw on seven decades of international law, which emerged, as the preamble recalls, from “our shared world history in which the State’s power to deprive citizens of their nationality has been a precursor to committing the gravest crimes and unimaginable atrocities which deeply shocked the conscience of humanity”. The Principles and the international law standards that they restate therefore recognise both the deep cost of citizenship deprivation on the individual and on international order. As the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights pointed out in 1977: “The deprivation of nationality ... always has the effect of leaving a citizen without a land or home of his own, forcing him to take refuge in an alien country. That is, it inevitably impinges on another jurisdiction, and no state may take upon itself the power to adopt measures of this 28