312 D. Owen undermines the comity of nations because it is akin to ‘throwing into a neighbour’s field, the stones that incommode us in our own’.46 Moreover, in contexts of presumptive dual nationality that are legitimated as avoiding the creation of statelessness, such denationalization practices simply incentivize a race to denationalization [as the UK case of Pham (previously B2) v. Home Secretary illustrates]. Even if we set these considerations aside, however, a further key point remains, as a recent comment on the UK case makes plain: ‘The provision of security is the core function of the State and it has a duty to prosecute and convict those who jeopardize it. By excommunicating them without conviction, the British government is shirking this duty.’47 Arbitrary deprivation can thus be understood as deprivation that fails to acknowledge the ‘genuine link’ between a person and a state and the responsibilities that adhere to this relationship within the context of an international order of states. In terms of the right to have a right to not be arbitrarily deprived of one’s nationality, it is clear that the establishment of such a right is not compatible with an international order of states in which states have the discretion to determine unilaterally their own citizenship rules and this is so even if this political order is subject to an effective binding norm against de jure statelessness. 4 The Right to Change One’s Nationality and the Right to Naturalize The grounds of the human right to change one’s citizenship that is expressed in UNDHR Article 15(2) are closely related to the grounds of the human right not to be prevented from leaving the territory of a state. If these rights to exit from the territory or from citizenship are denied, citizens (and residents in the territorial case) are subject to the dominion of the state irrespective of their own choices or circumstances. From a liberal perspective, denying voluntary renunciation that does not render a person stateless is an unjustifiable interference with the free choices of individuals concerning those with whom they choose to engage in civic association. From a republican point of view, it is a political form of servitude in that it leaves citizens exposed to the arbitrary power of the state. In this respect, it is a normatively significant and unjustified feature of global political society that there are a number of states that do not permit voluntary renunciation of citizenship or only permit it for naturalised citizens. This is particularly significant because of the central role that unchosen birthright citizenship plays in securing individuals against statelessness, in providing stability conditions for the distribution of responsibility for people among states, and in supporting inter-generational solidarity within states.48 The right to change one’s nationality is thus a fundamental right that justifies restrictions on state sovereignty. However, the effective possession of such a right further requires that it 46 Gibney (2013), pp. 646–650. Bauböck and Paskalev (2015), p. 72. 48 For a justification of birthright citizenship/nationality in the context of a ‘genuine connection’ conception of citizenship, see Bauböck (2017). 47 123