sentiments in the State concerned’.173 Similarly referencing the Nottebohm judgment, the
AfComHPR noted in a case against Côte d’Ivoire that the sense of ‘having become Ivorians’
developed over decades by immigrants, and especially their children, had developed into
‘established rights’.174 Building on its own jurisprudence, the ACERWC’ General Comment
No 2 supported the right of a child born in the country to acquire nationality on application and
for the automatic grant of nationality to the second generation born in the country, without any
requirement to prove statelessness.175 These principles established the basis for provisions in
the Protocol to the African Charter on the Right to a Nationality adopted in 2024, the first
international treaty to put in place such obligations.176
The UNHCR has also drawn on the ensemble of this jurisprudence (not all of it explicitly
cited) to state without qualification that denial of nationality on discriminatory grounds
constitutes arbitrary deprivation of nationality177—thus fulfilling a call by Foster and Baker for
racial discrimination to feature more strongly in the agency’s advocacy for the right to a
nationality.178
It has, however, proved harder to establish national or international norms on nondiscrimination in relation to ordinary naturalisation; that is, the grant of nationality to adults on
the basis of long residence (even as equality in rights based on marriage is provided for in
treaties and increasingly the norm). The leading international court decision on this question
remains the 1984 Advisory Opinion of the IACtHR requested by Costa Rica in relation to its
own provisions on naturalisation. Citing the test of ‘objective and reasonable justification’ from
the ECtHR’s 1968 judgment in the Belgian linguistics case,179 the Court found that affinitybased preferences for the Hispanic world in naturalisation provisions were not discriminatory,
on the basis that such individuals ‘will be more easily and more rapidly assimilated within the
national community’.180
In line with this focus on assimilation, tests of civic integration and language skills are
becoming more common, seen as part of the trend to ‘renationalisation’ of nationality; they
have not been subject to legal challenge in principle.181 Nonetheless, the UN Human Rights
Committee did find against Denmark in a 2015 decision concerning refusal of naturalisation to
a person with learning disabilities who could not fulfil the language test. After the usual ritual
acknowledgment of State prerogatives in this area, the Committee asserted that, in this case, a
‘reasonable and objective justification and a legitimate aim’ had not been shown.182
The normative response is especially complex in relation to the State’s extension of
nationality, especially on a group basis, to people resident outside its internationally recognised
borders. Both the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe and the Organisation for
173
ACJPS and PLACE v Sudan (n 48) para 33.
OSJI v Côte d’Ivoire (n 49) paras 100, 136.
175
General Comment No 2 (n 47) paras 92, 100.
176
Protocol to the African Charter on the Right to a Nationality (n 37) arts 5–6.
177
Guidelines on Statelessness No 5 (n 116) paras 9, 91; see also UNHCR, ‘Background Note on Discrimination’
(n 135).
178
Foster and Baker (n 4) 91.
179
Case Relating to Certain Aspects of the Laws on the Use of Languages in Education in Belgium v Belgium
(Merits) (1979–80) 1 EHRR 252.
180
Advisory Opinion OC-4/84: Proposed Amendments to the Naturalisation Provision of the Constitution of Costa
Rica, Requested by the Government of Costa Rica (IACtHR, 19 January 1984) paras 56, 60.
181
G-R de Groot, J-J Kuipers and F Weber, ‘Passing Citizenship Tests as a Requirement for Naturalisation: A
Comparative Perspective’ in E Guild and K Groenendijk (eds), Illiberal Liberal States: Immigration, Citizenship
and Integration in the EU (Routledge 2009) 51; P Mouritsen, ‘Beyond Post-National Citizenship: Access,
Consequence, Conditionality’ in A Triandafyllidou, T Modood and N Meer (eds), European Multiculturalisms:
Cultural, Religious and Ethnic Challenges (Edinburgh University Press 2011) 88; C Joppke, ‘Through the
European Looking Glass: Citizenship Tests in the USA, Australia, and Canada’ (2013) 17 Citizenship Studies 1.
182
Q v Denmark Communication No 2001/2010 (19 May 2015) UN Doc CCPR/C/113/D/2001/2010, para 7.3.
174