This reality is reflected in the rule of exhaustion of local remedies, which has long been accepted in customary international law.38 It is thus critical to have in place effective judicial enforcement mechanisms at the domestic level and the willingness to use them. 2.2 Prohibition of arbitrary deprivation of nationality and statelessness In parallel to the development of the right to acquire a nationality, both the UN Human Rights Committee and the Human Rights Council have played a key role in consolidating protection against arbitrary deprivation of nationality, and the right to return and be admitted to his or her own country. In its General Comment on Article 12 ICCPR (freedom of movement), the Human Rights Committee explained that ‘the right to enter his own country’ (in para.4) is there to protect a State’s citizen against forced exile or from being denied return: The scope of “his own country” … is not limited to nationality in a formal sense, that is, nationality acquired at birth or by conferral; it embraces, at the very least, an individual who, because of his or her special ties to or claims in relation to a given country, cannot be considered to be a mere alien. This would be the case, for example, of nationals of a country who have there been stripped of their nationality in violation of international law, and of individuals whose country of nationality has been incorporated in or transferred to another national entity, whose nationality is being denied them. The language of article 12, paragraph 4, moreover, permits a broader interpretation that might embrace other categories of long-term residents, including but not limited to stateless persons … In no case may a person be arbitrarily deprived of the right to enter his or her own country.39 The Human Rights Committee recently applied this Comment, which was made with regard to individuals deprived of any effective nationality, to individuals with a nationality on the ground that nationality was not as effective as other ties. In a departure from the majority views in Stewart v Canada,40 the Human Rights Committee, in Nystrom v Australia, took the view that the deportation of a Swedish national by Australia to Sweden was arbitrary based on two elements. The first element was that his ‘own country’ within the meaning of article 12(4) ICCPR was Australia ‘in the light of the strong ties connecting him to Australia, the presence of his family in Australia, the language he speaks, the duration of his stay in the country and the lack of any other ties than nationality with Sweden’.41 The second element Interhandel Case, ICJ Rep. 1959, 27. UN Human Rights Committee, General Comment 27, Freedom of movement (Art.12), U.N. Doc CCPR/C/21/Rev.1/Add.9 (1999), paras 20-21. 40 Stewart v Canada, Communication No.538/1993, Views of 1 November 1996, para 12.4: When ‘the country of immigration facilitates acquiring its nationality and the immigrant refrains from doing so, either by choice or by committing acts that will disqualify him from acquiring that nationality, the country of immigration does not become ‘his own country’ within the meaning of article 12, paragraph 4, of the Covenant’. For an application of Stewart, see Toala et al. v New Zealand, Communication No.675/1995, Views of 2 November 2000. 41 Nystrom, Nystrom and Turner v Australia, Communication No.1557/2007, Views of 18 July 2011, para 7.5. 38 39 7