Legal briefing: Statelessness and the right to respect for private and family life October 2024 of nationality. In several cases, including in the Netherlands,243 Ukraine,244 and Poland, the courts have found that the applicant’s private and family life did not outweigh the interest of the State and reasoned in line with a near-absolute sovereignty of States in nationality matters. In Poland, a child’s Polish nationality was withdrawn eight years after it had been confirmed by a local authority, due to no fault of the applicant and regardless of whether that would render the child stateless.245 As it relates to the denial of nationality, in Germany,246 a court has even rejected a naturalisation application in relation to a stateless Palestinian on the grounds that he would be unable to sustain himself and his relatives once his family would join him in Germany, although the applicant had not mentioned an intention for his family to relocate. The Court did not consider statelessness as a relevant factor in the case. This interpretation of international law is concerning, particularly in cases resulting in a person remaining or being rendered stateless as a result of the decision, given the tremendous impact that statelessness has on a person’s private and family life as well as other fundamental rights. In France, the Council of State has noted that decisions to deprive individuals of their nationality should take into account Article 8 ECHR.247 In 2021, it issued a judgment in a case concerning an applicant who acquired French nationality in 2007, but was later deprived of it after he was convicted for participation in terrorism activities. The Council of State noted, inter alia, that depriving an individual of French nationality did not necessarily prevent that person from residing or visiting France or affect their connections with their family members, therefore it did not interfere with the right to family life. However, it found that a deprivation decision did interfere with a fundamental aspect of the individual’s identity and therefore on the right to respect for one’s private life. In this particular case, the Council of State concluded that deprivation did not impose a disproportionate burden or punishment on the applicant in light of the crimes he was convicted for and given that he would not be rendered stateless as he held Algerian nationality since birth, thus it did not amount to a violation of Article 8 ECHR. The United Kingdom Court of Appeal248 ruled on a decision to deprive the appellant, KV, of their British citizenship on the grounds that they had deliberately concealed that they had earlier obtained a grant of British citizenship using false details. The Court of Appeal found, inter alia, that the Upper Tribunal was correct to hold that the burden of proving statelessness in this context lay on KV, and the Secretary of State for the Home Department (SSHD) should not be required to investigate whether a person has or previously had another nationality before depriving a person of citizenship on the grounds that naturalisation was obtained by fraud. Accordingly, KV would be required to show that he would not automatically re-acquire Sri Lankan nationality, and therefore 243 Netherlands, Court of North-Holland, ECLI:NL:RBNHO:2019:1727, 5 March 2019; Council of State (Raad van State), ECLI:NL:RVS:2013:1575. 16 October 2013. 244 Ukraine, Supreme Administrative Court, judgment no. 813/1774/18, 17 July 2019. 245 Poland, Supreme Administrative Court, case II OSK 189/07, 8 August 2008. 246 Germany, Federal Administrative Court, judgment 1 C 23.14, 28 May 2015. 247 France, Conseil d'État, Second Chamber, Judgement No. 450553, 30 November 2021. 248 United Kingdom, KV v Secretary of State for the Home Department, [2018] EWCA Civ 2483, 8 November 2018. 42