2021] NATIONALITY LAWS 101 Second, there is an emerging view that the duty to prevent statelessness is developing as a norm of customary international law and that this duty represents a constraint on state discretion in nationality matters.77 Reliance is placed on treaty provisions that share an underlying concern to prevent statelessness. Article 13 of the 1930 Hague Convention provides that if a child does not acquire the new nationality of his or her parents in the context of their naturalization, they are to retain their original nationality.78 Article 9(1) of the 1979 Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) provides that “[states] shall ensure in particular that neither marriage to an alien nor change of nationality by the husband during marriage shall automatically change the nationality of the wife, render her stateless or force upon her the nationality of the husband.”79 The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) includes under Articles 7 and 8 the right to a nationality and the right to an identity—and specifies that these rights are to be implemented “in particular where the child would otherwise be stateless.” 80 Importantly, these provisions in human rights instruments are complemented by the two major conventions on right to any other nationality; 3. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality or of the right to change it.”). See also League of Arab States, Arab Charter on Human Rights, Art. 29, May 22, 2004, reprinted in 12 INT’L HUM. RTS. REP. 893 (2005) (“Everyone has the right to nationality. No one shall be arbitrarily or unlawfully deprived of his nationality.”); The Commonwealth of Independent States, Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms art. 24, May 26, 1995, 3 I.H.R.R. 1 (stating both that “[e]veryone shall have the right to citizenship,” and that “[n]o one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his citizenship or of the right to change it.”). 77 Edwards, The Meaning of Nationality, supra note 72, at 28. See also Sanoj Rajan, Ending International Surrogacy-Induced Statelessness: An International Human Rights Law Perspective, 58 INDIAN J. INT’L L. 128 (2018) (noting that this is especially the case with respect to children). 78 1930 Hague Convention, supra note 66, art. 13 (“Naturalisation of the parents shall confer on such of their children as, according to its law, are minors the nationality of the State by which the naturalisation is granted. In such case the law of that State may specify the conditions governing the acquisition of its nationality by the minor children as a result of the naturalisation of the parents. In cases where minor children do not acquire the nationality of their parents as the result of the naturalisation of the latter, they shall retain their existing nationality.”). 79 United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, Dec. 18, 1979, 1249 U.N.T.S. 13. See also United Nations Convention on the Nationality of Married Women, Feb. 20, 1957, 309 U.N.T.S. 65. 80 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child arts. 7-8, Nov. 20, 1989, 1577 U.N.T.S. 3.

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