Citizenship Deprivation In The United Kingdom 165 of dual nationals. The prohibition of creating statelessness stems from UK’s obligations under Article 8(1) of the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, which provides that a state party shall not deprive a person of its nationality if such deprivation would render him stateless.5 As a novelty, the 2002 Act introduced the right to appeal a citizenship deprivation order.6 However, the Secretary of State can certify that the decision to deprive was based, wholly or partially, in reliance to information that he believes should not be made public in the interests of national security or of the relationship between the United Kingdom and another country or otherwise, in the public interest. In this case, the appeal is heard by the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) and not by an ordinary court.7 SIAC operates with a system of open and closed judgments. The open judgments contain only information that is not considered sensitive by the executive, a fact that affects the transparency of the decision making process. Initially, appeals had a suspensive effect, to the extent that a citizenship deprivation order could not be made while an appeal was pending or while there was a possibility to launch an appeal within the statutory time limits.8 Since 2004, appeals no longer have suspensive effect, which in practice means that the person is deprived of citizenship when the order is made and that this is also the moment in relation to which one has to establish the existence of statelessness.9 The scope of the 2004 changes was to allow for deprivation of citizenship and deportation procedures to take place concurrently. In practice, as a result of a citizenship deprivation order the person concerned becomes a third country national subject to immigration control and to other measures applicable in respect of foreigners, such as exclusion from the UK orders or 5 UN General Assembly, Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, 30 August 1961, United Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 989, p. 175, <http://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6b39620.html> accessed 20 October 2013. 6 British Nationality Act 1981, s 40A. The right to appeal was introduced as a result of UK’s intention to ratify the European Convention on Nationality, adopted under the auspices of the Council of Europe. 7 British Nationality Act 1981, s 40(a)2. SIAC was initially set up to hear cases of deportation in which the decision is based on sensitive information that cannot be reviewed by the ordinary courts, nor fully disclosed to the parties. D. Bonner and R. Cholewinski, ‘The Response of the United Kingdom’s Legal and Constitutional Orders to the 1991 Gulf War and the Post -9/11 ‘War’ on Terrorism’, in E. Guild and A. Baldaccini (eds.) Terrorism and the Foreigner (Leiden: Brill 2007) 123-175. 8 Section 40 A(6) British Nationality Act 1981. 9 Schedule 2 to the Asylum and Immigration Act 2004. tilburg law review 19 (2014) 163-170