2022 Statelessness & Citizenship Review 4(1) ECHR art 8 because of the impact of such a decision upon the individual. 33 The jurisprudence of the Court has gradually come to apply in the context of justification for interference with protected rights with the concept of arbitrariness, by which deprivation ‘must be in conformity with domestic law and comply with specific procedural and substantive standards, in particular the principle of proportionality’.34 In Usmanov v Russia, the Court held that an annulment of citizenship breached ECHR art 8 because of the insufficient clarity of relevant law and/or lack of procedural safeguards.35 The increased elucidation of applicable norms by the European Court of Human Rights, coupled with the domestic protection of ECHR norms by the HRA 1998, and the thinness of other recourse, may draw further attention to the HRA 1998 in domestic litigation on deprivation. Another point of note is that although Ms Begum left the United Kingdom whilst still a child and the SSHD by the Borders Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009 s 55, incorporating art 3(1) of the Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989 (‘CRC89’), is bound in immigration, asylum or nationality decisions to treat the best interests of the child as a primary consideration, by the time Ms Begum was located she was no longer a child. 36 Had she reappeared earlier, whilst still a minor, her CRC89 ‘best interests’ would have had considerable importance as a primary consideration in the case. On appeal and judicial review, her circumstances fell to be considered variously at the date of the decision challenged or at the date of adjudication. Child law might also have been relevant in another context. Had any of Ms Begum’s children, born whilst she remained a British citizen, survived, such a child would remain a British citizen by descent when Ms Begum lost her own British citizenship by deprivation under the BNA 1981 s 40(2).37 In that case, on the facts, the inherent jurisdiction of the High Court in England and Wales, regarding children of British nationality, would allow the Court to order removal of the child to the United Kingdom. 38 In parallel, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child has, in recent months, reiterated, specifically in the admissibility decisions on applications under the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child communications procedure concerning children of French ISIL fighters, that ‘States should take extraterritorial responsibility for the protection of children who are their nationals outside their 33 34 35 36 37 38 Ramadan v Malta (European Court of Human Rights, ECLI:CE:ECHR:2016:0621JUD007613612, 21 June 2016) [84]. United Nations Human Rights Council, Human Rights and Arbitrary Deprivation of Nationality — Report of the Secretary-General, UN Doc A/HRC/13/34 (14 December 2009) [25]. Usmanov v Russia (European Court of Human Rights, ECLI:CE:ECHR:2020:1222JUD004393618, 2020). ZH (Tanzania) v SSHD [2011] UKSC 4; [2011] 2 AC 166. BNA 1981 (n 2) s 2(1)(a). See Re A (Jurisdiction: Return of Child) [2013] UKSC 60, [2014] AC 1; A v A (Return Order on the Basis of British Nationality) [2013] EWHC 3298 (Fam), [2014] 2 FLR 244; Re M (A Child) [2020] EWCA Civ 922, [2021] Family 163; and, on related issues concerning the approach by relevant courts to minors in the context of radicalisation of parents and/or children, see James Munby, Radicalisation Cases in the Family Courts (Guidance, 8 October 2015); Re M (Wardship: Jurisdiction and Powers) [2015] EWHC 1433; London Borough of Tower Hamlets v B (No 2) [2016] EWHC 1707 (Fam), [2016] 2 FLR 887. This possibility was evidently considered by the family of Ms Begum during the short lifespan of her third child, see Esther Addley, and Daniel Boffey, ‘Shamima Begum’s Family Hope to Bring Her Baby to the UK’, The Guardian (online, 21 February 2019) <https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/feb/21/shamima-begums-family-hope-tobring-her-baby-to-uk>. 174