RAMADAN v. MALTA JUDGMENT – SEPARATE OPINION 35 implication, the existence of a right to citizenship under Article 8 of the Convention, read in conjunction with Article 3 of Protocol No. 438. Furthermore, a systemic interpretation of both provisions in line with the Council of Europe standards on statelessness warrants the conclusion that State citizenship belongs to the core of an individual identity39. In spite of the fact that matters of citizenship were traditionally considered to be within the domestic jurisdiction of each State, as was codified in Article 1 of The Hague Convention of 1930 on Certain Questions relating to the Conflict of Nationality Laws and recalled in Article 3 of the European Convention on Nationality, there are limits imposed by international law on each State’s discretion. The manner in which States regulate matters bearing on nationality cannot today be deemed within their sole jurisdiction. Taking into account the Convention’s Article 8 right to an identity and to State citizenship, States parties are bound by two obligations. In the light of the above interpretation of the Convention in accordance with present-day circumstances and in harmony with international law, and regardless of ratification by the respondent State of the above-mentioned, relevant 38. The exact same conclusion was reached by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights which, in its advisory opinion of 1984, proclaimed that the right to nationality is an inherent human right recognised in international law and that the powers of States to regulate matters relating to nationality are circumscribed by their obligations to ensure the full protection of human rights (Re Amendments to the Naturalisation Provisions of the Constitution of Costa Rica, cited above). See, among other scholars, Ludovic Hennebel and Hélène Tigroudja, Traité de droit international des droits de l’homme, Paris, 2016, pp. 1181-1187, Alessandra Annoni and Serena Follati (eds.), The changing role of nationality in international law, London, 2013, Societé Française de Droit International, Droit international et nationalité, Paris, 2012, Emmanuel Decaux, “Le droit a une nationalité en tant que droit de l’homme”, in Revue trimestrielle des droits de l’homme, 89/2011; Mark Manly and Laura Van Waas, “The value of the human security framework in addressing statelessness”, in Alice Edwards and Carla Ferstman (eds.), Human Security and Non-citizens, Law, Policy and International affairs, Cambridge University Press, 2009, pp 549-81; Katherine Southwick and M. Lynch, “Nationality Rights for All, a progress report and global survey on statelessness”, in Refugees International, March 2009; Eva Ersboll, “The Right to a Nationality and the European Convention on Human Rights”, in Human Rights in Turmoil. Facing Threats, Consolidating Achievements, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, Leiden, 2007; and Ineta Ziemele, State Continuity and Nationality: The Baltic States and Russia. Past, Present and Future as Defined by International Law, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, Leiden, Boston 2005. 39. In this respect, it should be mentioned that the Court has recently held that an individual’s ethnic identity must be regarded as an essential aspect of his or her private life and identity, along with such aspects as name, gender, religion and sexual orientation (S. and Marper v. the United Kingdom [GC], nos. 30562/04 and 30566/04, § 66, ECHR 2008, and Ciubotaru v. Moldova, no. 27138/04, § 53, 27 April 2010). It has also established that Article 8 embraces multiple aspects of the person’s physical and social identity, like the recognition of an individual’s legal civil status (registration of a marriage in Dadouch v. Malta, no. 38816/07, § 48, ECHR 2010 (extracts), and refusal of nationality in Genovese v. Malta, no. 53124/09, §§ 30 and 33, 11 October 2011).