2021]
NATIONALITY LAWS
105
Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Racism, Racial
Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance from 2018
highlights this tension in noting that “the regulation of
nationality is generally considered to be within the domestic
jurisdiction of States,” yet “international law provides that the
right of States to decide who their nationals are is not absolute.”96
To be sure, some scholars have acknowledged Article 1(3)
as problematic. Peter Spiro observes that while international law
has significantly and broadly constrained discriminatory
classifications, Article 1(3) “brackets the use of race as a criterion
for citizenship.”97 He concludes that “[i]n its original conception .
. . the Convention was not intended to constrain criteria for
admission from outside the existing community,” citing the
Convention as an example of international law’s historical silence
about a citizenship regime that had the clear effect of excluding
outsiders on the basis of race.98 Joanne Mariner makes a similar
observation. Writing in 2003, she comments:
the convention shifts gears with regard to rules
regulating citizenship. Despite its broad and
96 Special Rapporteur Report on Contemporary Forms of Racism, supra
note 36, ¶ 23 (citing U.N. Secretary-General, Human Rights and Arbitrary
Deprivation of Nationality, Hum. Rts. Council, ¶¶ 20, 57, U.N. Doc. A/HRC/13/34
(Dec. 14, 2009)) (“The [International Law] Commission also affirmed that the
right of States to decide who their nationals are is not absolute and that, in
particular, States must comply with their human rights obligations concerning
the granting of nationality.”). Accord Proposed Amendments to the
Naturalization Provision of the Constitution of Costa Rica, Advisory Opinion
OC-4/84, Inter-Am. Ct. H.R. (ser. A) No. 4, ¶ 32 (Jan. 19, 1984) (contending that
that “the manners in which States regulate matters bearing on nationality
cannot today be deemed within their sole jurisdiction; those powers of the State
are also circumscribed by their obligations to ensure the full protection of human
rights”); Václav Mikulka (Special Rapporteur), Third Rep. on Nationality in
Relation to the Succession of States, at 20–21, U.N. Doc. A/CN.4/480 (Feb. 27,
1997) (indicating that a State must exercise “its discretionary power within the
scope of its territorial or personal competence . . . in a manner consistent with
its international obligations in the field of human rights.”). See also id. at 20
(indicating that “State sovereignty in the determination of its nationals does not
mean the absence of all rational constraints. The legislative competence of the
State with respect to nationality is not absolute.”) (citing HENRI BATIFFOL &
PAUL LAGARDE, DROIT INTERNATIONAL PRIVÉ 69–70 (7th ed. 1981)).
97 Spiro, supra note 3, at 716.
98 Id. Note, however, Spiro’s treatment of racial discrimination as jus
cogens: “The prohibition on race discrimination has since arguably evolved into
a jus cogens norm—that is, a norm from which no derogation is permitted.” Id.
at 716 n.144 (citing Juridical Condition and Rights of the Undocumented
Migrants, Advisory Opinion OC-18/03, Inter-Am. Ct. H.R. (ser. A) No. 18, ¶ 101
(Sept. 17, 2003)).