Addressing Statelessness through ICERD conflicts of domestic legislation, state succession and gender discriminatory legislation. However, discrimination and arbitrariness often play a key role. Such discrimination can be obvious and directly lead to statelessness, for example, when a state decides to deprive the citizenship of an entire ethnic group at once. It can also be a subtle element that nevertheless leaves a particular group more vulnerable to be left without citizenship, for example, when communities face extra administrative barriers or racism among officials. 1 As a testament of such discrimination, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (‘UNHCR’) estimates that approximately 75 per cent of the stateless individuals included in its statistics belong to a minority group. 2 Article 5(d)(iii) of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (‘ICERD’) stipulates that States Parties undertake to prohibit and to eliminate racial discrimination in all its forms and to guarantee the right of everyone … to equality before the law, notably in the enjoyment of … the right to nationality. 3 Equality is treatment without any discrimination or distinction of any kind as to ‘race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin’. 4 As deprivation and denial of nationality on discriminatory grounds remain major causes of statelessness, ICERD has not lost its relevance regarding the right to nationality. This paper is concerned with an assessment of the interpretation of the right to nationality by the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (‘the Committee’), the ICERD’s monitoring body. An assessment of the Committee’s approach on this matter reflects how the body is working towards fulfilling its promise of equal access to the right to a nationality as one of the rights listed in art 5, and whether it is effective in doing so. Naturally, the ICERD is not alone in this promise. The 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons (‘1954 Convention’) and the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness (‘1961 Convention’) (‘Statelessness Conventions’), though not providing for a right to a nationality per se, set out a definition of statelessness, rules to ensure that stateless people enjoy a minimum set of human rights 5 and how to prevent statelessness and reduce it over time through safeguards and concrete rules. 6 The Statelessness Conventions are supplemented by a broad array of international and regional treaties that form a broad framework to protect against statelessness. Zooming in on the nine United Nations human rights conventions, each has its own scope and focus, and can be 1 2 3 4 5 6 Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion, The World’s Stateless (Wolf Legal 2014) 23–27. This is Our Home — Stateless Minorities and their Search for Citizenship (Report, UNHCR 2017) 1. By lack of an internationally agreed definition of a minority, the UNHCR describes a minority as ‘an ethnic, religious or linguistic group, fewer in number than the rest of the population, whose members share a common identity’. Owing to this common identity that is different than the majority group, minorities in many situations face discrimination that could lead to statelessness. International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (adopted 21 December 1965, entered into force 4 January 1969) UNGA Res. 2106 A (XX) (‘ICERD’) art 5(d)(iii). ibid art 1. Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, opened for signature 28 September 1954, 360 UNTS 117 (entered into force 6 June 1960) (‘1954 Convention’). Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, opened for signature 30 August 1961, 989 UNTS 185 (entered into force 13 December 1975) (‘1961 Convention’). 223