EUROPEAN UNION AGENCY FOR ASYLUM 7. Nationality and acts of persecution or serious harm Persecution or serious harm, within the meaning of the QR, may take an infinite variety of forms, some of which may concern or affect nationality. The persecution or serious harm takes the form of an involuntary loss, denial or attribution of nationality due to facts that may be related or unrelated to the nationality of the applicant. For example, the applicant may have their nationality withdrawn because of their political opinions. The reasons for withdrawal may also be unrelated to a Refugee Convention ground and be part, for example, of a penal sentence. In this case, you will need to conduct an examination of subsidiary protection. 7.1. Deprivation, denial or forced attribution of nationality as a form of persecution or serious harm Despite the right to a nationality being enshrined in several human rights treaties, a universal ‘right to nationality’ that can be invoked by any individual in relation to any particular country does not exist ( 102). States retain the sovereign right to establish their own legislation regulating nationality, which includes provisions concerning the acquisition or loss of such nationality and their own laws regulating the personal status of individuals (see Section 2. Concepts on nationality and statelessness). However, human rights law and international obligations impose certain limits on the state’s power in matters of attribution and loss of nationality ( 103). Deprivation, denial or forced attribution of nationality may amount to persecution or serious harm per se and/or to a future risk thereof based on the consequences such actions may have on the applicant’s core rights (and obligations) that are attached to the holding of a nationality. Article 9 QR – Acts of persecution ( 104) 1. An act shall be regarded as an act of persecution within the meaning of Article 1(A) of the Geneva Convention where it is: (a) sufficiently serious by its nature or repetition as to constitute a severe violation of basic human rights, in particular the rights from which derogation cannot be made under Article 15(2) of the [European Court of Human Rights]; or (102) M. Foster, and H. Lambert, International Refugee Law and the Protection of Stateless Persons, Oxford, 2019; online edition, Oxford Academic, 23 May 2019, p. 147. (103) UNHCR, Guidelines on Statelessness No. 5: Loss and Deprivation of Nationality under Articles 5-9 of the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, paragraph 86. (104) See also Article 9 QD (recast). 66