Exploring Atypical Citizenship Deprivation and Spillover Effects freedoms set out in the Convention or the Protocols thereto’.104 Along with other campaign organisers, Schona Jolly KC (the lawyer representing the plaintiffs and chair of the Bar Human Rights Committee of England and Wales) contested this finding, suggesting that there were no substantive reasons for the case’s inadmissibility and hinting at possible political motivations.105 The campaigners decided not to take their case to the UN Human Rights Committee (‘UNHRC’) due to concerns that Norway had a reservation on the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (‘Optional Protocol’), 106 which had been reserved against art 5(2) when the protocol was ratified.107 This reservation would prevent the UNHRC from considering cases that had previously undergone substantive examination by other international institutions. Based on precedent, cases deemed ‘manifestly ill-founded’ by the ECtHR were seen as having undergone substantive review. Therefore, the campaigners and their lawyer believed it was highly unlikely that the UNHRC would consider the case. 3 Genuine link between Liu and Others v Norway and Atypical Citizenship Deprivation The Liu and Others v Norway case dealt with the right to national identity based on the private right in the international treaties and constitutional law of Norway, however the Norwegian Government refused to consider these aspects. The right to identity might not be seen as an absolute right, and the State may interfere if it is in the public interest (as art 8 of the ECHR has pointed out). However, this case also shows that Norway ignores the genuine link between the Taiwanese people and Taiwan; instead, it denies the Taiwanese citizenship while attaching Chinese citizenship to them. That is, the Norwegian Government not only does not consider the genuine connection but establishes a false connection between the Taiwanese people and the Chinese Government. Following the discussion in the previous sections, the lack of de jure recognition of Taiwanese citizenship has allowed each state to decide how to deal with the entry of people on their Taiwanese passports. Nevertheless, does such sovereign power extend to stripping a foreign citizen of citizenship by forcing a different citizenship on them? A state may have the power to recognise or not recognise another citizenship, but can it fully ignore a genuine link to that citizenship when there are conflicts? 104 Liu and Others v Norway (n 8). 105 Yiling Cheng, Betty Hu and Joseph Liu, ‘NORWAY/TAIWAN: Taiwanese registered as Chinese citizens in Norway’, Human Rights Without Frontiers (Web Page, 16 August 2021) <https://hrwf.eu/norway-taiwan-the-european-court-of-human-rights-ruled-the-applicationof-taiwanese-in-norway-inadmissible/>, archived at <perma.cc/XKP5-SM44>; Yaoyu Chiang, ‘Tai wan ren zhuang gao nuo wei zheng fuou zhou ren quan fa yuan bu shou li [Taiwanese filed a complaint to the European Court of Human Rights, the court ruled the application of Taiwanese in Norway inadmissible]’ Deutsche Welle (online, 4 August 2021) <https://www.dw.com/zh/a-58736739>, archived at <perma.cc/W6BG-TYWS>. 106 Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, opened for signature 19 December 1996, 999 UNTS 171 (entered into force 23 March 1976) (‘Optional Protocol to the ICCPR’). 107 Norway had submitted the following reservation to art 5(2): ‘The Committee shall not have competence to consider a communication from an individual if the same matter has already been examined under other procedures of international investigation or settlement.’ See ‘Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights’, United Nations Treaty Collection (online, 11 June 2025) <https://treaties.un.org/Pages/ViewDetails.aspx?src=IND&mtdsg_no=IV5&chapter=4&clang=_en>, archived at <perma.cc/3JUU-6FQT>. 119