Chakrabarty: Citizenship Deprivation as an Act of Persecution: Case Study of t Although these are not necessarily legal assessments of whether genocide has occurred or is underway, they have political ramifications and often take into account State intent as visible in fact.23 This paper seeks to explore how the Assam NRC has been ‘persecutory’ and why there exists a fear of a subsequent all-India exercise being the same. As a preliminary matter, the first section deals with the right to a nationality and the stringent substantive and procedural safeguards preceding deprivations of nationality, leading to statelessness. The second section examines whether such deprivations could amount to ‘persecution’. The final section deals with the preparation of the NRC in the state of Assam and its replication across the country. II Nationality and Statelessness Nationality or citizenship has been described as the “right to have rights”, and the denial of this right, has been equated with a denial of juridical personality. 24 In its absence, states can disregard an individual’s rights when asserted against the state or other individuals.25 Both nationality and citizenship are markers of state membership. However, while nationality operates in the international realm, citizenship operates in the municipal realm and is understood in terms of the rights and obligations that a member bears under municipal laws. 26 The latter is thus variable in scope. For instance, in the absence of citizenship, the Rohingyas in Myanmar are prohibited from having more than two children, disbarred from holding property, have no rights to marry without prior permission, and so on.27 Article 15 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights (UDHR), provided for the first time that everyone had a “right to a nationality”, and the corollary right to not be arbitrarily deprived of it. Prior to this, nationality had been adjudged as lying solely within the state domain, 28 and See, David Scheffer, “Genocide and Atrocity Crimes” (2006) 1:3 Genocide Studies and Prevention 229. Alison Kesby, The right to have rights: citizenship, humanity, and international law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), ch 2 at 62. 25 Girls Yean and Bosico v Dominican Republic (2005), Inter-Am Ct HR (Ser C) No 130 at paras 178-179. 26 Paul Weiss, Nationality and Statelessness In International Law, 2nd ed (Germantown, Maryland: Sijthoff & Noordhoff, 1979) at 4-5. 27 Engy Abdelkar, “The History of the Persecution of Myanmar’s Rohingya”, The Conversation (21 September 2017), online: <https://theconversation.com/the-history-of-the-persecution-of-myanmars-rohingya-84040>. 28 Lassa Oppenheim, International Law, 8th ed (David Mckay Company Inc,1955) at 642; Case of the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations (1925), Advisory Opinion, PCIJ (Ser B) No. 10 at 19. 23 24 Published by Osgoode Digital Commons, 2021 5