2021] NATIONALITY LAWS 133 opinion on Namibia, the court additionally noted that “[t]o establish . . . and to enforce, distinctions, exclusions, restrictions and limitations exclusively based on grounds of race, colour, descent or national or ethnic origin which constitute a denial of fundamental human rights is a flagrant violation of the purposes and principles of the Charter.”221 In a separate opinion, Judge Ammoun reiterated the General Assembly position condemning “policies of apartheid and racial discrimination . . . as constituting a crime against humanity.”222 A number of domestic and regional courts have upheld the jus cogens status of racial non-discrimination. Supporting a notion of jus cogens as natural law, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in their advisory opinion on Judicial Conditions and the Rights of Undocumented Migrants stated: [T]his Court considers that the principle of equality before the law, equal protection before the law and non-discrimination belongs to jus cogens, because the whole legal structure of national and international public order rests on it and it is a fundamental principle that permeates all laws.223 discrimination on racial grounds which follow therefrom, both of which principles, like the right of self-determination, are imperative rules of law.”) (The court’s reference to these norms was made in obiter.). See Vera GowllandDebbas, Judicial Insights into the Fundamental Values and Interests of the International Community, in THE INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE: ITS FUTURE ROLE AFTER FIFTY YEARS 327, 333 (A.S. Muller, D. Raič, & J.M. Thuránszky eds., 1997). 221 Legal Consequences for States of the Continued Presence of South Africa in Namibia (South West Africa) notwithstanding Security Council Resolution 276 (1970), Advisory Opinion, 1971 I.C.J. 16, ¶ 131 (June 21). 222 Id. at 79, 81 (separate opinion of Ammoun, J.) (citing G.A. Res. 2074 (XX), ¶ 4 (Dec. 17, 1965)). See also Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization Res. 3/1.1/2, Declaration on Race and Racial Prejudice (Nov. 20, 1978) (declaring that as a most serious violation of the complete self-fulfillment of human being, apartheid “is a crime against humanity.” A distinction is made in Article 4(3) between apartheid and “other policies and practices or racial segregation and discrimination” which are not seen to amount to crimes against humanity but “crimes against the conscience and dignity of mankind.”). 223 Judicial Condition and Rights of Undocumented Migrants, Advisory Opinion OC-18/03, Inter-Am. Ct. H.R. (ser. A) No. 18, ¶ 101 (Sept. 17, 2003). See also MYRES MC DOUGAL, HAROLD D. LASSWELL & LUNG-CHU CHEN, HUMAN RIGHTS AND WORLD PUBLIC ORDER: THE BASIC POLICIES OF AN INTERNATIONAL LAW OF HUMAN DIGNITY 3–6 (1980).