customary norm of international law prohibiting governmental discrimination based upon race, ethnicity, religion or political belief. Moreover, the prohibition against forcible expulsion finds its basis in the Hague Regulations,60 and has also been integrated by the Fourth Geneva Convention.61 3. Under the Law of State Succession, the newly emerged successor state is under the binding customary obligation to allow all habitual residents (regardless of their nationality, and whether physically present at the time of succession, or forced to leave by reason of events leading up to the succession) to return and/or be readmitted to their homes of origin from which they were displaced during the succession process.62 Hence, Palestinians displaced in the lead up to or during the Nakba retain a right of return as former habitual residents, unless and until they voluntarily chose a durable solution rather than return and acquired nationality elsewhere. Despite the fact that states enjoy a certain degree of discretion in regulating their nationality status, Israel’s discretion as the successor state is not absolute, and it has an obligation to grant nationality to the habitual residents of its territory subject to its succession, irrespective of their temporary location, if they held nationality of the predecessor state.63 In the case of Palestinians, their nationality of Palestine prior to 1948 was established under international law through the Mandate system which recognized sovereignty as residing with the Palestinian people and not reverting to the Mandatory power.64 As people who should have been granted nationality status, the Palestinians expelled in 1948 retain two additional and independent grounds for their right of return: the first is based on the rule of readmission, for 60 Hague Regulations, supra note 57, art. 46(1). 61 GCIV, supra note 20, art. 45, 49, 147. 62 These principles have been more recently articulated in the International Law Commission, Draft Articles on Nationality of Natural Persons in Relation to the Succession of States (With Commentaries), 3 April 1999, Supplement No. 10 (A/54/10), art.14, available at: http://www.refworld.org/ docid/4512b6dd4.html [accessed 27 Jul 2018] [hereinafter Draft Articles on Nationality]. However, for a more detailed discussion of customary law as it applied in 1948 see Ian Brownlie, “The Relations of Nationality in Public International Law,” 39 The British Yearbook of International Law Yearbook of International Law 284, 320 (1963) and Gail J. Boling, The 1948 Palestinian Refugees and the Individual Right of Return: An International Law Analysis, BADIL, 2007, available at http://www.badil.org/ phocadownloadpap/Badil_docs/publications/individualROR-en.pdf. 63 Draft Articles on Nationality, supra note 62, art. 5. Besides, the nationality status conferral should be conducted without discrimination, as set out in art. 15. Noting that some 64 See Mutaz M. Qafisheh, The International Law Foundations of Palestinian Nationality: A legal examination of nationality in Palestine under Britain’s rule, (Leiden: Koninklijke Brill NV, 2008). Note that a separate legal question remains for those 150,000 Palestinians denationalized under the British Mandate, for more information see BADIL, Survey 2010-2012, supra note 6, endnote 5. 24