norm also applies to provisions on nationality is supported by treaty law, including specific prohibitions on deprivation of nationality on racial, ethnic, religious or political grounds in the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness;137 and on discrimination in nationality provisions in both the European Convention on Nationality138 and in the Protocol to the African Charter on the Right to a Nationality adopted in 2024 (albeit with a proviso in relation to ‘public order rules’).139 The situation is rendered more complex by ambiguities in ICERD, which excludes from its remit not only ‘distinctions, exclusions, restrictions or preferences ... between citizens and non-citizens’, but also ‘legal provisions ... concerning nationality, citizenship or naturalization, provided that such provisions do not discriminate against any particular nationality’.140 The newly independent States that were the central force behind the adoption of ICERD as the first UN human rights treaty both insisted on the importance of adopting a convention outlawing racial discrimination, but also wished not to be constrained as they redressed the imbalances caused by pervasive discrimination under colonial laws.141 Michelle Foster and Timnah Rachel Baker provided a detailed examination of the language of ICERD in their 2021 article, considering its history and interpretation by the CERD Committee which has oversight of the convention.142 They were critical of the CERD Committee’s cautious approach in its views addressing communications on nationality discrimination, in concluding observations on State reports and in its 2004 General Recommendation on the rights of non-citizens.143 A separate survey of the CERD Committee’s concluding observations also found a lack of focus on provisions that discriminate in attribution of nationality at birth, despite some more assertive findings.144 Prospectively, Foster and Baker proposed ‘a narrowly circumscribed construal’ of the exception relating to nationality, advancing ‘new grounds’ for a reading ‘based on the jus cogens norm of racial nondiscrimination, applicable only in relation to acquisition and not deprivation of citizenship, pursuant to a legitimate aim, and proportional to the achievement of that aim’.145 In supporting their argument that the prohibition of racial discrimination as a jus cogens norm extends also to nationality, Foster and Baker considered the views of the IACtHR,146 but a range of other international jurisprudence and soft law instruments would also have supported their case—and made it more strongly. This includes resolutions on arbitrary deprivation of nationality dating back to the 1990s adopted by States represented in the UN Commission on Human Rights and then the Human Rights Council, which have consistently called for all UN Member States ‘to refrain from taking measures and from enacting legislation that discriminates against persons or groups of persons on grounds of race, colour or national or ethnic origin’ in 137 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness (n 23) art 9. See also discussion in McDougal, Lasswell and Chen (n 76) 958. 138 European Convention on Nationality (n 25) art 5. 139 Protocol to the African Charter on the Right to a Nationality (n 37) arts 3–4. 140 ICERD (n 3) art 1(2)–(3). 141 SLB Jensen, The Making of International Human Rights: The 1960s, Decolonization, and the Reconstruction of Global Values (CUP 2016) ch 4; Foster and Baker (n 4) 108–14. 142 Foster and Baker (n 4). 143 CERD Committee, ‘General Recommendation No 30: Discrimination against Non-Citizens’ (5 August 2004) UN Doc CERD/C/GC/30. Unlike most other international treaties, ICERD uses both nationality/national and citizenship/citizen in different places. CERD’s General Recommendation No 30 chooses the language of citizenship (although also referring to ‘non-nationals’ and ‘nationality’ in a handful of locations), without discussion of this choice. 144 M Hoornick, ‘Addressing Statelessness through the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination’ (2020) 2 Statelessness & Citizenship Review 222, 240. 145 Foster and Baker (n 4) 88, 144. 146 ibid 133–34.