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adopting any policy that directly or indirectly leads to such
deprivation.”169 This language of breach of obligation is striking,
as it is considerably stronger than the weaker language of
“concern” more commonly invoked in relation to cases of denial
of citizenship. In other cases of deprivation, while the language
of breach or violation is not invoked, there is nonetheless a more
forceful approach. For example, in 2012 the Committee noted
Jordan’s “withdrawal of citizenship from persons originating
from the West Bank of the Occupied Palestinian Territory,” and
“urge[d] the State party to discontinue the practice of
withdrawing nationality from persons originating from the
Occupied Palestinian Territory.” 170 It has further called for
remedial action following unlawful deprivation in the form of
reinstatement of nationality in the context of Jordan 171 and
Iraq.172
The difficulty with this differential approach in relation
to denial of nationality on the one hand and deprivation of
nationality on the other is that its rationale is not explained in
either General Recommendation Thirty or any of the
Committee’s concluding observations. Such a neat dichotomy is
not evident in the text of the treaty; it is, after all, not clear why
a denial of nationality on racial grounds is any less a violation of
Article 5(d)(iii)’s right to nationality on non-discriminatory
grounds than an active withdrawal of nationality.
In only a few concluding observations has Article 1(3)
explicitly been mentioned, 173 although, notably, it does not
169 Comm.
on Elimination Racial Discrimination, Concluding
Observations on Turkmenistan, ¶16, U.N. Doc. CERD/C/TKM/CO/5∗ (Mar. 27,
2007) (emphasis added). See also Comm. on Elimination Racial Discrimination,
Concluding Observations on Ethiopia, ¶ 23, U.N. Doc. CERD/C/ETH/CO/15
(June 20, 2007) (noting with concern the situation of children of parents of
Eritrean origin, who were deprived of their Ethiopian citizenship in the period
1998–2000); Comm. on Elimination Racial Discrimination, Concluding
Observations on Jordan, U.N. Doc. CERD/C/JOR/CO/13-17 (Apr. 4, 2012);
Comm. on Elimination Racial Discrimination, Concluding Observations on
Jordan, U.N. Doc. CERD/C/JOR/CO/18-20 (Dec. 26, 2017); Comm. on
Elimination Racial Discrimination, Concluding Observations on Kenya, U.N.
Doc. CERD/C/KEN/CO/1-4 (Sept. 14, 2011).
170 Comm.
on Elimination Racial Discrimination, Concluding
Observations on Jordan, ¶ 12, U.N. Doc. CERD/C/JOR/CO/13-17 (Apr. 4, 2012).
171 Id.
172 Comm.
on Elimination Racial Discrimination, Concluding
Observations on Iraq, ¶ 17, U.N. Doc. CERD/C/IRQ/CO/15-21 (Sept. 22, 2014).
173 Our analysis identified that Article 1(3) was mentioned in relation
to six countries (being Côte d’Ivoire, Dominican Republic, France, Iraq, Namibia,