SOLVING STATELESSNESS of proportionality and the automatic extension of deprivations of nationality to a person’s dependents were added.16 While the resolution has never defined what constitutes legitimate deprivation of nationality, these additions help to clarify the safeguards needed to prevent a deprivation of nationality from being arbitrary. The resolution has also included progressively more on States’ positive obligations to prevent statelessness and grant nationality to particular groups. These include paragraphs urging “all States to prevent statelessness through legislative and other measures aimed at ensuring that all children are registered immediately after birth and have the right to acquire a nationality and that individuals do not become stateless thereafter”17 and encouraging States “to grant their nationality to persons who had habitual residence in their territory before it was affected by the succession of States, especially if those persons would otherwise become stateless”.18 The resolution thus helps to identify and promote good practice in the area of nationality law. The proposal that States refrain from automatically extending deprivation of nationality to dependents19 and the inclusion of more extensive discussion of the right of the child to nationality and protection of children against statelessness in the 2016 resolution20 seems to fit with the trend towards increasing recognition that women and children should have an autonomous right to nationality rather than one which derives from their husbands or fathers. In this respect subsequent resolutions pick up on the resolution on ‘The right to a nationality: women and children’ adopted at the March 2012 session.21 Unlike the arbitrary deprivation of nationality resolution, this has not been a regular part of the Human Rights Council’s work, but the level 16 17 18 19 20 21 HRC, Resolution 26/14, supra n13, paras. 16-17. Repeated in HRC, Resolution 32/5, supra n13, paras. 16-17. HRC, Resolution 20/5, supra n10, para.9; HRC, Resolution 26/14, supra n13, para. 10. HRC, Resolution 20/5, supra n10, para. 11; HRC, Resolution 26/14, supra n13, para. 18; and HRC, Resolution 32/5, supra n13, para. 6. HRC, Resolution 26/14, supra n13, para. 17; HRC, Resolution 32/5, supra n13, para. 17. HRC, Resolution 32/5, supra n13, paras. 9-10 and 18-21. HRC, Resolution 20/4, supra n10. 19