Taking into account Article 15 UDHR, the Human Rights Council has acknowledged the right to a nationality to be a fundamental human right.31 The right includes the right to acquire, change or retain a nationality, and it is recognized in some form or another in a raft of international legal instruments. For instance, the ICCPR recognizes the right of ‘every child’ to acquire a nationality.32 In addition, every instrument of international human rights law enshrines the obligation of states to respect the human rights of all individuals without distinction of any kind. States at times have restricted the enjoyment of human rights, but only subject to strict conditions set by the principles of non-discrimination, equal protection of the law, and due process.33 States therefore have a duty to ensure that everyone enjoys the right to a nationality without discrimination, and that no one is denied or deprived of their nationality on the basis of discriminatory grounds. For instance, Article 9 CEDAW refers specifically to non-discrimination in relation to acquisition, change or retention of nationality, and to statelessness as well as conferral of nationality to children,34 but as of today, at least twenty States have attached reservations to Article 9.35 In sum, the acknowledgement of a right to nationality in the human rights law framework is strong on paper but the nature and scope of these provisions is limited. Moreover, enforcement mechanisms at national level are often weak and yet these mechanisms are essential ‘to making rights a reality’.36 This is because: Rights are not abstract. They are, if one adopts a social contract approach, part of the relationship between a citizen and a state in which the citizen has ceded certain powers to the state in return for the state’s commitment to use those powers for the common good.37 http://www.refworld.org/docid/4b83a9cb2.html [accessed 30 April 2013] 31 UN Human Rights Council resolutions 7/10 of 27 March 2008, 10/13 of 26 March 2009, 13/2 of 24 March 2010, and 20/5 of 16 July 2012, as well as all previous resolutions adopted by the Commission on Human Rights on the issue of human rights and the arbitrary deprivation of nationality. See also, UN HCR Report of the Secretary General 25/28 on ‘Human rights and arbitrary deprivation of nationality’ of 19 December 2013. 32 Article 24, ICCPR. 33 These principles are protected in all international human rights law instrument, including Articles 1(3) and 55 UN Charter, Articles 1, 2, 7 and 10 UDHR, and Articles 2, 3, 14, 16, 24, 26 ICCPR. See also UN HCR Resolution 20/5 (2012) and HRC Report of the Secretary General 25/28 (2013). 34 CEDAW, Article 9 1. States Parties shall grant women equal rights with men to acquire, change or retain their nationality. They shall ensure in particular that neither marriage to an alien nor change of nationality by the husband during marriage shall automatically change the nationality of the wife, render her stateless or force upon her the nationality of the husband. 2. States Parties shall grant women equal rights with men with respect to the nationality of their children. See Alice Edwards, ‘Displacement, Statelessness and Questions of Gender Equality under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women’, UNHCR Legal and Protection Policy Research Series, August 2009. 35 See http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/cedaw/reservations-country.htm 36 Aryeh Neier, The International Human Rights Movement – A History, Princeton University Press 2012, at p.68. 37 Ibid. 6