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precise mechanisms of the discrimination may vary from case to
case. Racialized citizenship often intersects with gender and
religious discrimination. 36 It can manifest both directly and
indirectly, and across distinct “moments” of the citizenship cycle,
from acquisition, to naturalization, to deprivation of
citizenship.37 Across all of these moments or sites of racialized
citizenship, writes David Scott FitzGerald, “racialization may
consist of negative discrimination against a particular group
and/or a positive preference that favors a particular group.”38 The
first moment presents differently depending on whether a state
adopts jus soli (right of soil, or birthright citizenship) as its
guiding principle, or jus sanguinis (the principle of citizenship by
descent). 39 At the second stage, naturalization or conferral of
citizenship can be restricted, or denied, for certain groups.
36 See generally Special Rapporteur on Contemp. Forms of Racism,
Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, Report, U.N. Doc.
A/HRC/38/52 (Apr. 25, 2018) [hereinafter Special Rapporteur Report on
Contemporary Forms of Racism]. See also E. Tendayi Achiume, Governing
Xenophobia, 51 VAND. J. TRANSNAT’L L. 333, 353–55 (2018) [hereinafter
Achiume, Governing Xenophobia]. Achiume notes that “the absence of religion
from Article 1’s otherwise broad definition of racial discrimination” undermines
“ICERD’s capacity comprehensively to address the contemporary problem of
xenophobia.” Id. However, she also notes that the Committee has found that
Article 1 may apply to cases involving religious discrimination in some cases. Id.
See, e.g., Comm. on Elimination Racial Discrimination, General
Recommendation Thirty-Two, on the Meaning and Scope of Special Measures in
the International Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, ¶ 7,
U.N. Doc. CERD/C/GC/32 (Sept. 24, 2009) [hereinafter General
Recommendation Thirty-Two]; Radha Govil & Alice Edwards, Women,
Nationality and Statelessness, in NATIONALITY AND STATELESSNESS UNDER
INTERNATIONAL LAW 169 (Alice Edwards & Laura van Waas eds., 2014); Comm.
on Elimination Racial Discrimination, Rep. on the Fifty-Sixth Session (Mar. 6–
24, 2000) Fifty-Seventh Session (Jul. 31–Aug. 25, 2000), U.N. Doc. A/55/18, at
152 (Aug. 25 2000); Comm. on Elimination Discrimination Against Women,
General Recommendation No. Thirty-Two on the Gender-Related Dimensions of
Refugee Status, Asylum, Nationality and Statelessness of Women, U.N. Doc.
CEDAW/C/GC/32 (Nov. 14, 2014).
37 See FitzGerald, supra note 35.
38 Id.
39 Id. at 131. For an interesting discussion of jus sanguinis as being
“historically tainted because it is rooted in practices and conceptions that rely
on ethno-nationalist ideas about political membership,” see Costica Dumbrava,
Bloodlines and Belonging: Time to Abandon Ius Sanguinis?, in DEBATING
TRANSFORMATIONS OF NATIONAL CITIZENSHIP 73, 73 (Rainer Bauböck ed.,
2018). But see Rainer Bauböck, Ius Filiationis: A Defence of Citizenship by
Descent, in DEBATING TRANSFORMATIONS OF NATIONAL CITIZENSHIP, supra, at
83 (noting that the following contributions to this collection challenge
Dumbrava’s view on this question).