79. Id. at 44; UN General Assembly, Universal
Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), 10 December
1948, 217 A (III), Article 15. That provision states that
“everyone has the right to a nationality” and (Article 15(2))
“no on shall be arbitrarily deprived of … nationality.” The
UDHR is a non-binding declaration, but carries significant
weight in interpreting the binding provisions of treaties
and rules of international custom.
80. Article 24 of the CCPR, Article 5(d)(iii) of the CERD,
Article 9 of the Convention on the Elimination of All
Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW),
Articles 7 and 8 of the Convention on the Rights of the
Child (CRC), Article 18 of the Convention on the Rights of
Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), Article 20 of the
American Convention on Human Rights, and Article 6 of
the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the
Child. See generally UN Human Rights Council, Human
rights and arbitrary deprivation of nationality: report of the
Secretary-General, 14 December 2009, A/HRC/13/34;
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
(UNHCR), Expert Meeting - Interpreting the 1961 Statelessness Convention and Avoiding Statelessness resulting from
Loss and Deprivation of Nationality - Summary Conclusions,
para. 59 (March 2014), http://www.refworld.org/
docid/533a754b4.html [hereinafter Tunis Conclusions].
81. CCPR, G.A. res. 2200A (XXI), 21 U.N. GAOR Supp.
(No. 16) at 52, U.N. Doc. A/6316 (1966), 999 U.N.T.S. 171,
entered into force March 23, 1976.
82. The United States ratified the CCPR on June 8, 1992.
83. This right is also enumerated in Article 13 of the
UDHR, Article 5(d)(iii) of the CERD, and Article 8 of the
American Declaration on the Rights and Duties of Man,
among others.
84. UN Human Rights Committee, CCPR General
Comment No. 27: Article 12 (Freedom of Movement), U.N.
Doc. CCPR/C/21/Rev.1/Add.9, 2 November 1993.
85. UN Human Rights Committee, CCPR General
Comment No. 27: Article 12 (Freedom of Movement), U.N.
Doc. CCPR/C/21/Rev.1/Add.9, November 2, 1993. The
HRC also hears individual complaints under the ICCPR
(states must ratify an optional protocol in order for the
remedy to apply; the United States has not done so). In
Stewart v. Canada, in relation to the protection granted by
Article 12(4), the committee’s decision established that the
principle of non-expulsion of nationals should be
understood broadly, maintaining that “his own country”
is a concept that applies to individuals who are nationals
as well as to certain categories of individuals, who while
not nationals in a formal sense, are also not “aliens.” UN
Human Rights Committee, Stewart v Canada, Merits,
Communication No 538/1993, November 1, 1996, para
12.3-12.5.
86. R.Y. Jennings & A. Watts, eds., Oppenheim’s
International Law at 944-45 (9th ed. 2008).
166
87. A/Conf.9/C.1/SR.12, at 8 (delegate from Turkey); A/
Conf.9/C.1/SR.14, at 3 (delegate from Pakistan). For a
more recent account, see Eric Fripp, ed., The Law and
Practice of Expulsion and Exclusion from the United
Kingdom: Deportation, Removal, Exclusion and Deprivation
of Citizenship 385 (2015) (“The admission of a British
citizen to the territory of another state on the basis of
British nationality, where he or she is not a national of that
state and so does not have a general right of entrance and
residence to it, creates a relationship between the two
states within which the UK has a duty not to impinge upon
the sovereignty of the other state by frustrating its ability
to expel an alien who entered its territory as a British
citizen.”).
88. R.Y. Jennings & A. Watts, eds., Oppenheim’s
International Law 880 (9th ed. 2008) (“In so far as
deprivation of nationality results in statelessness, it must
be regarded as retrogressive, and the fact that some states
find no need (subject to certain exceptions) to provide for
deprivation of nationality suggests that no vital national
interest requires it.”).
89. UN Human Rights Committee, CCPR General
Comment No. 17: Article 24 (Rights of the Child), 7 April
1989, https://www.refworld.org/docid/45139b464.html.
90. See, e.g., Bronwen Manby, Citizenship and Statelessness
in Africa: The law and politics of belonging 43 (2016) (“[A]
retrospective finding that a person was not a national and
was issued nationality documents in error, or arbitrary
application of rules relating to loss by operation of law, are
equally subject to rules prohibiting arbitrary deprivation of
nationality”).
91. See Report of the Secretary-General on Human Rights
and arbitrary deprivation of nationality, U.N. Doc. A/
HRC/13/34, 14 December 2009, para. 23 (deprivation of
nationality “covers all forms of loss of nationality,
including those that arbitrarily preclude a person from
obtaining or retaining a nationality, particularly on
discriminatory grounds, as well as those that automatically deprive a person of a nationality by operation of law,
and those acts taken by administrative authorities that
result in a person being arbitrarily deprived of nationality.”).
92. UN Human Rights Council, Report of the Working
Group on Arbitrary Detention, 24 December 2012, A/
HRC/22/24; see also Eric Fripp, ed., The Law and Practice of
Expulsion and Exclusion from the United Kingdom:
Deportation, Removal, Exclusion and Deprivation of
Citizenship 384 (2015).
93. UN Human Rights Council, Human Rights and
Arbitrary Deprivation of Nationality: Report of the
Secretary-General, 19 December 2013, A/HRC/25/28.
94. Expulsion of aliens: Texts and titles of the draft articles
adopted by the Drafting Committee on second reading,
International Law Commission Sixty-sixth session, UN
General Assembly, A/CN.4/L.797, May 24, 2012.
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