2021] NATIONALITY LAWS 103 intersecting principles, and the contemporary academic discourse around them, go a long way in advancing a “new international law of citizenship.” 87 However, there remains a chink in the armor of the new regime related to nationality practice, which, if left unaddressed, threatens to undermine its robustness. Article 1(3) of ICERD, at least on its face, reflects and possibly perpetuates a lingering remnant of state discretion. While ICERD itself is time and again put forward as an example of a constraint on state discretion, most scholars tend to ignore or brush over a tension that exists in the very text of the Convention and that perhaps perpetuates the very problem they seek to resolve. Coming into force on January 4, 1969, ICERD is broadly considered the core of the international human rights framework for addressing and combating racial discrimination.88 Article 1(1) defines racial discrimination as: [A]ny distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life.89 As explained above, Article 1(2) of the Convention stipulates a limitation on the terms of Article 1(1). It provides that the Convention does not apply to distinctions, exclusions, restrictions, or preferences made between citizens and noncitizens. It has been argued that “while this provision allows States to make some distinctions between citizens and noncitizens,” it must be narrowly construed and interpreted in accordance with standards relating to the prohibition of racial discrimination and equality before the law as enshrined in Article 5 of the Convention.90 A full discussion of Article 1(2) is Nationality as a Human Right: The Current Trend Towards Recognition, 12 HUM. RTS. L.J. 1, 3 (1991). 87 Spiro, supra note 3. 88 Kevin Boyle & Anneliese Baldaccini, A Critical Evaluation of International Human Rights Approaches to Racism, in DISCRIMINATION AND HUMAN RIGHTS: THE CASE OF RACISM 135 (Sandra Fredman ed., 2001). 89 ICERD, supra note 11, art.1(1). 90 Special Rapporteur Report on Contemporary Forms of Racism, supra note 36, at ¶19 (also noting that “[d]istinctions between citizens and non-citizens cannot be applied in a racially discriminatory manner or as a pretext for racial