Statelessness Working Paper Series No. 2017/7 Citizenship is not only a legal status which result into rights and duties for both citizens and the state. It is just as much a social status as a form of membership that gives people a sense of national identity and belonging to a group that shares the same norms and values.22 Historically, citizenship was determined by ethnicity, religion, and other sociocultural factors that people within a community have in common. States had complete sovereignty to determine who can acquire citizenship and under which conditions. 23 Determining conditions for citizenship inevitably results in the inclusion of some and exclusion of others. State sovereignty at the time also meant no restrictions in determining conditions for loss of nationality. Particularly, naturalised citizens were subject to revocation practices and differential treatment. Singling out naturalised citizens in regulating deprivation of citizenship is historically linked to fears of disloyalty among people who were born abroad and obtained citizenship at a later stage. It was believed that country of birth and allegiance are intrinsically related with one another. They were not given the same privileges that come along with birthright citizenship. Naturalised citizenship was a conditional status that is given based on allegiance and good behaviour. 24 Differential treatment and creating categories of citizenship is, thus, nothing new. The difference between then and now is the way the international community feeds into the concept of citizenship. Over time, several developments—including the rise of international law—reframed the concept of citizenship, as well as the traditional approach to state sovereignty in regulating nationality matters. In the early twentieth century, international law on citizenship mainly focused on regulating international relations and solving conflicts of nationality laws.25 With the rise of international human rights law, states agreed to abide by universal norms such as the principle of non-discrimination on the basis of gender, race or ethnicity, and the prohibition of arbitrary deprivation of nationality. Restrictions were imposed on rendering a person stateless in order to prevent mass denationalisation and mass migration, as witnessed during the Second World War. Spiro explains that new international laws on citizenship have reframed the concept of citizenship as an individual right, also increasingly limiting state sovereignty in regulating nationality matters.26 States now have the sovereignty to determine who is a national and who is not by regulating modes of acquisition and loss of nationality, as long as this happens ‘within the limits set by international law’.27 The next section focuses on the extent to which international law limits state sovereignty in determining who can acquire or lose nationality, and to what extent tension exists between international law principles when applying this in the context of nationality deprivation. 22 S. Benhabib, The Rights of Others: Aliens, Residents and Citizens, Cambridge University Press 2006, p. 3. P. Spiro, A New International Law of Citizenship, American Journal of International Law, 105, 2011, p. 1. 24 M.J. Gibney, Should citizenship be conditional? The ethics of denationalization, Cambridge University Press 2013, p. 646 – 658. 25 League of Nations, Convention on Certain Questions Relating to the Conflict of Nationality Law, 13 April, Treaty Series, vol. 179, p. 89. No. 4137. 26 Ibid. N23. 27 League of Nations, Convention on Certain Questions Relating to the Conflict of Nationality Law, 13 April 1930, League of Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 179, p. 89, No. 4137, Preamble. 23 8