2021] NATIONALITY LAWS 139 fundamental freedoms.”245 Similarly, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights has held that “a general policy or measure that has disproportionately prejudicial effects on a particular group may be considered discriminatory even where it is not specifically aimed at that group and there is no discriminatory intent.”246 In that decision, the Court ruled that Danish Laws on Family Reunification constituted indirect discrimination on the basis of ethnic origin, in violation of Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Indeed, the notion that direct discrimination may be made out in the absence of intent might even be said to constitute a general principle of law, given the widespread acceptance in domestic jurisdictions of this notion.247 In sum, while it is widely accepted that the prohibition on racial discrimination has attained the status of a jus cogens norm, little attention has been given to the scope of this prohibition. At its most exacting, the prohibition extends only to laws and practices that amount to apartheid. Yet, even on that narrow approach, racial discrimination in nationality laws is capable of violating the norm, as recognized in the very text of the Apartheid Convention.248 However, such a narrow approach does not have widespread support; rather, both jurisprudence and the views of eminent scholars overwhelmingly support the view that the jus cogens norm extends to severe or systemic forms of racial discrimination, and that such discrimination may manifest in intention or effect. Having considered the scope of the jus cogens norm of racial non-discrimination, and how matters of nationality fit within it, the question then becomes one of application. Specifically, how does the jus cogens status of systemic racial non-discrimination apply to Article 1(3)? What does this mean for methods of interpreting Article 1(3) and its application to discriminatory cases of nationality regulation? 245 ICERD, supra note 11, art 1(1). 246 Biao v. Denmark, App. No. 38590/10, ¶ 91 (May 24, 2016), http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-141941 [https://perma.cc/BR9T-9HZB] (citing S.A.S. v. France, App. No. 43835/11, (July 1, 2014), https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/app/conversion/pdf/?library=ECHR&id=001145466&filename=001-145466.pdf&TID=uexpxlonsk [https://perma.cc/6GUZ2FXZ]). 247 See, e.g., TARUNABH KHAITAN, A THEORY OF DISCRIMINATION LAW (2015). 248 Apartheid Convention, supra note 235, art. 2.

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