Scrutiny of Purpose The United Nations Human Rights Council, in a 2013 report on arbitrary deprivation of nationality, stressed that deprivation of nationality must meet certain “conditions” in order to avoid arbitrariness: “These conditions include serving a legitimate purpose, being the least intrusive instrument to achieve the desired result and being proportional to the interest to be protected.”93 Some purposes are always illegitimate. As noted above, “[a] State shall not make its national an alien, by deprivation of nationality, for the sole purpose of expelling him or her.”94 The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, in its Third Report on the situation of human rights in Chile, articulated a higher standard of protection than that afforded under the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, Article 8, framework, particularly in the context of denationalization as a penal sanction: ... this right [to nationality] is properly considered to be one of the most important rights of man, after the right to life itself, because all the prerogatives, guarantees and benefits man derives from his membership in a political and social community – the State – stem from or are supported by this right. Because of its unique nature, there is almost no country in the world where the law uses or applies loss of nationality as a penalty or sanction for any kind of crime, much less for activities of a political nature. It is generally considered that since nationality of origin is an inherent attribute of man, his natural right, and is not a gift or favour bestowed through the generosity or benevolence of the State, the State may neither impose it on anyone by force, nor withdraw it as punishment or reprisal. The deprivation of nationality ... always has the effect of leaving a citizen without a land or home of his own, forcing him to take refuge in an alien country. That is, it inevitably impinges on another jurisdiction, and no state may take upon itself the power to adopt measures of this sort. ... [T]he Commission believes that this penalty – anachronistic, outlandish and legally unjustifiable in any part of the world – is a thousand times more odious and reprehensible when applied in our own Americas, and should forever be banned from being applied by governments everywhere.”95 Despite the powerful limitations on the deprivation of nationality, there are conditions under which deprivation is countenanced. For example, fraud is accepted as a legitimate purpose for deprivation of nationality under international law. The Human Rights Council’s 2013 report on arbitrary deprivation of nationality, however, emphasized that “loss or deprivation of nationality can only be justified where the fraud or misrepresentation was perpetrated for the purpose of acquiring nationality and was material to its acquisition.” A proportionality test applies in such cases, including weighing whether the deprivation would result in statelessness96 and 30 UNMAKING AMERICANS