Such conduct notably includes treason and other activities directed against the vital
interests of the State concerned (for example work for a foreign secret service) but
would not include criminal offences of a general nature, however serious they might
be.
Furthermore, Article 8(3) of the 1961 Statelessness Convention specifies that
conduct seriously prejudicial to the vital interests of the State can constitute a ground
for deprivation of nationality only if it is an existing ground for deprivation in the
internal law of the State concerned, which, at the time of signature, ratification or
accession, the State specifies it will retain.69
International law further requires that in any cases of loss of nationality, persons arbitrarily
deprived of their nationality should have the possibility to appeal and be guaranteed
adequate procedural standards. 70 They should also have access to an effective remedy,
including but not limited to restoration of nationality and reparation;71 this should be made
available in domestic law, and flexibility should apply when considering evidence of proof
required for personal identification.
The Human Rights Council recently recalled ‘that the prevention and reduction of
statelessness are primarily the responsibility of States, in appropriate cooperation with the
international community’.72 It has therefore been argued that State’s responsibility occurs on
two levels. 73 First, State’s responsibility occurs for the act of arbitrary deprivation of
acquired nationality by naturalization and resided abroad for more than seven years without registering with the
State authorities whilst abroad.
69 On the UK’s declaration under article 8(3), see Guy S. Goodwin-Gill, ‘Mr Al-Jedda, Deprivation of Citizenship,
and International Law’, revised draft of a paper presented at a Seminar at Middlesex University on 14 February
2014,
at
4
<http://www.parliament.uk/documents/joint-committees/human-rights/GSGGDeprivationCitizenshipRevDft.pdf > accessed 25 June 2014. The points made in that paper were further
developed in Goodwin-Gill (n 35); Goodwin-Gill, ‘Deprivation of Citizenship resulting in Statelessness and its
Implications
in
International
Law
–
Further
Comments’,
6
April
2014
<http://www.ilpa.org.uk/resources.php/26116/ilpa-briefing-for-the-immigration-bill-house-of-lords-report-7april-2014-deprivation-of-citizenship> accessed 24 April 2014; Goodwin-Gill, ‘Deprivation of Citizenship
resulting in Statelessness and its Implications in International Law - More Authority (is it were needed…)’, 5 May
2014
<http://www.parliament.uk/documents/joint-committees/human-rights/GSGG-DeprivationCitizenshipMoreAuthority.pdf> accessed 20 June 2014.
70 E.g., Article 8(4), 1961 Statelessness Convention; Chapter IV, 1997 European Convention on Nationality. See
also, UN HRC, ‘Human rights and arbitrary deprivation of nationality: report of the Secretary-General’, 19
December 2013, A/HRC/25/28, paras 31-34.
71 UN HRC resolutions 7/10 and 10/13.
72 UN HRC, ‘Human rights and arbitrary deprivation of nationality: resolution / adopted by the Human Rights
Council’, 16 July 2012, A/HRC/RES/20/5, para 3. Note that States’ obligations to meet their protection
responsibilities towards refugees, stateless people and internally displaced persons had already been
acknowledged by the UN General Assembly a few years earlier. UNGA Resolutions on the Office of the UNHCR
61/137 of 25 January 2007, 66/133 of 12 March 2012, and 67/149 of 6 March 2013.
73 David C Baluarte, ‘Denationalization as persecution: Using a human rights approach to refugee law to address
the stateless legal limbo in the United States’, paper to be presented at the First Global Forum on Statelessness: New
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