Clara Van Thillo Several human rights provisions articulate the prohibition of discrimination in nationality matters, which is now considered as a general principle of international law.112 The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) prohibits racial discrimination in the enjoyment of the right to a nationality.113 In a similar vein, gender discrimination in nationality matters is prohibited. The Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) states that States party to the convention must grant women equal rights with men to acquire, change or retain their nationality.114 Another example, although less stringent, includes Article 29(2) of the Arab Charter on Human Rights, stipulating that States must take measures to allow children to acquire their mothers’ nationality. Furthermore, the CRPD states that State parties must ensure that disabled persons are not deprived of their nationality arbitrarily or on the basis of their disability.115 The importance of the principle of non-discrimination in connection with the right to a nationality has also been reiterated by the HRC.116 These human rights standards are increasingly being used to tackle statelessness through existing human rights mechanisms. The treaty monitoring bodies supervising the implementation of the human rights standards enshrined in the UN human rights treaties are of particular importance. Through the established practice of publishing ‘general comments’, the treaty monitoring bodies have further interpreted the relevant provisions. For instance, the CCPR clarified that the right of every child to acquire a nationality entails a prohibition to discriminate between legitimate children and children born out of wedlock.117 The treaty monitoring bodies have also made several recommendations to States related to statelessness in the form of ‘concluding observations’.118 For example, both the CCPR and the Committee on the Rights of the Child have recommended States to facilitate birth registration to prevent statelessness.119 Another relevant human rights mechanism is the Universal Periodic Review (UPR), a process through which the human rights records of the UN member States are reviewed under the auspices of the HRC.120 In various outcome reports, States made recommendations to other States related to statelessness, such as removing gender discriminatory provisions from their nationality laws.121 Finally, the various UN Special Alice Edwards, ‘The meaning of nationality in international law in an era of human rights’ in Alice Edwards and Laura van Waas (eds), Nationality and Statelessness under International Law (Cambridge University Press 2014), 26-27. 113 International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (adopted 7 March 1966, entered into force 4 January 1969) 660 UNTS 195 (ICERD), art. 5(d)(iii). 114 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (adopted 18 December 1979, entered into force 3 September 1981) 1249 UNTS 13 (CEDAW), art. 9(1). 115 CRPD, art. 18(1)(a). 116 HRC ‘Human rights and arbitrary deprivation of nationality’ (15 July 2016) UN Doc A/HRC/RES/32/5, para. 2. 117 CCPR ‘General Comment No. 17: Article 24 (Rights of the Child)’ (7 April 1989), para. 8. 118 CEDAW, art. 18; CRC, art. 44; CRMW, art. 73; CRPD, art. 35; ICCPR, art. 40; ICERD, art. 9. 119 See e.g. CCPR ‘Concluding observations on the third periodic report of the Central African Republic’ (30 April 2020) UN Doc CCPR/C/CAF/CO/3, para. 32; Committee on the Rights of the Child ‘Concluding observations on the combined fifth and sixth periodic reports of Viet Nam’ (21 October 2022) UN Doc CRC/C/VNM/CO/5-6, para. 21. 120 UNGA ‘Human Rights Council’ (15 March 2006) UN Doc A/RES/60/251, para. 5(e). 121 See e.g. HRC ‘Report of the Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review: Togo’ (14 April 2022) UN Doc A/HRC/50/5, paras. 119.47-119.48; HRC ‘Report of the Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review: Sudan’ (20 April 2022) UN Doc A/HRC/50/16, para. 137.235. Recommendations related to statelessness have steadily increased over the three cycles thus far. Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion ‘Mainstreaming Statelessness and the Right to Nationality in the Universal 112 12 Academy of European Law