Born of the Islamic State: Addressing Discrimination in Nationality Provision through a Rule of Law Framework Sean Lees Statelessness Working Paper Series No. 2016/08 Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion December 2016 Author biography Sean Lees is an independent consultant with over ten years of experience in rule of law programming and policy development. Lees was the former Senior Policy Advisor for International Development Law Organization and a Rule of Law Officer in the UN Secretary-General’s Executive Office. Lees has worked on rule of law and access to justice programmes in Afghanistan, Fiji, Iraq, Sudan and Thailand. Lees is a graduate of Boston College Law School and University of California at Berkeley. Author email seanlees@gmail.com Key words access to justice — rule of law — Iraq — discrimination — SGBV — violence against women— Islamic State Abstract The steady march towards the liberation of Iraq from the control of Islamic State (ISIS) is raising concerns for the children born of sexual slavery and forced marriages. How can we guarantee access to nationality for the children of women abducted by ISIS? What role might gender discrimination play in denying these children the right to nationality and how can it be addressed? This paper argues that the rule of law provides a conceptual framework to help rationalize and strengthen approaches towards addressing statelessness, particularly in cases involving discrimination in nationality provisions.