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NATIONALITY LAWS
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paired Articles 1(2) and 1(3) were therefore viewed as limiting
interpretive clauses on the broad protections conferred by 1(1),
and especially in response to the (contested) inclusion of the term
“national origin” therein. The discussions around national origin
were influenced strongly by concerns and anxieties related to
colonialism and the desire of many states to preserve national
governance. This concern is evident in comments by the
representative of Uganda, who stated, “it was natural that a
country which had just become independent should wish to give
its own nationals the key posts in the economy hitherto largely
held by nationals.”119 It is perhaps worth noting that a similar
concern for independence in a post-colonial context can be
discerned in the text of the International Covenant on Economic,
Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), which reads at Article 2(3):
“Developing countries, with due regard to human rights and their
national economy, may determine to what extent they would
guarantee the economic rights recognized in the present
Covenant to non-nationals.” 120 Here too, Article 2(3) follows a
broad non-discrimination clause in Article 2(2), which provides
that “[t]he States Parties to the present Covenant undertake to
guarantee that the rights enunciated in the present Covenant
will be exercised without discrimination of any kind as to race,
colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national
or social origin, property, birth or other status.”121 Evo Dankwa
has pointed out that during the drafting history of ICESCR a
number of delegates from developing countries had urged that
the approval of Article 2(2) “would be tantamount to
perpetuating the dominant position of aliens in the economic
field,” particularly in light of colonial powers that had deprived
the new states “of that opportunity to ensure that meaningful
economic rights were exercised by most people in their
countries.”122
119 U.N. GAOR, 20th Sess., 1305th mtg. at 89, U.N. Doc. A/C.3/SR.1305
(Oct. 14, 1965).
120 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
art. 2(3), Dec. 16, 1966, 933 U.N.T.S. 3.
121 Id. art. 2(2).
122 Evo Dankwa, Working Paper on Article 2(3) of the International
Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 9 HUM. RTS. Q. 230, 236
(1987) (citing U.N. GAOR, Draft International Convention on Human Rights, at
235, U.N. Doc. A/5365 (1962) (“The sole aim of the proposals in question was to
rectify situations which frequently existed in the developing countries
particularly those which recently won their independence. In such countries, the
influence of non-nationals on the national economy—a heritage of the colonial
era—was often such that nationals were not in a position fully to enjoy the