Atuguba et al. For all states that adopted the jus soli principle, statelessness at birth would not arise because all children are born in the territory of one state or another. Yet Ghana has adopted the jus sanguinis principle, which can lead to statelessness in various ways. For example, a child born in a jus sanguinis state to parents who are stateless cannot receive a nationality from his or her parents. Instead, the child inherits the parents’ statelessness, perpetuating social and economic disadvantages from one generation to another. A typical example is a child born in Ghana to a Liberian mother, with the father of the child being unknown. The Liberian mother cannot pass on her nationality to a child born outside Liberia, and Ghana does not have a jus soli safeguard as per Article 6 of the ACRC and Article 1 of the 1961 UN Convention. Thus, the child is stateless. No Arbitrary Deprivation of Citizenship. There are no provisions under the laws of Ghana that allow for arbitrary deprivation of Ghanaian citizenship. According to the 1992 Constitution of Ghana, a citizen of Ghana by birth cannot be deprived of his or her Ghanaian citizenship under any circumstance by a court of law. This is a very strong safeguard against statelessness. The 1992 Constitution, however, provides that a person who has acquired citizenship in Ghana through any means other than birth may be deprived of citizenship by the High Court on application by the attorney general, if it is proven that the activities of this person are inimical to the security of the state or prejudicial to public morality or the public interest, or that the citizenship was acquired by fraud, misrepresentation, or any other improper or irregular practice. Vesting the power to deprive a person of Ghanaian citizenship with the High Court ensures that such deprivation is not arbitrary, since the court must act in accordance with the law and must exercise proper discretion. In the 1969 decision Olympio v. Commissioner for the Interior, the plaintiff received a letter from the principal secretary of the Ministry of Interior stating that his permission to remain in Ghana had been withdrawn and that he must leave within 48 hours. Consequently, the plaintiff initiated an action in the High Court seeking a declaration that he was a citizen of Ghana by descent, could not therefore be deported from Ghana, and required no permission from the defendant to remain in Ghana. The plaintiff presented the following evidence: his father was born in Kpandu, his paternal 21 grandmother was born and baptized in Keta, his mother was born and baptized in Keta, his maternal grandmother was born in Keta, and he was born in Lomé, Togo, on April 1, 1933. The High Court found that the plaintiff’s mother, grandmother, and greatgrandmother were all born in Keta and were British and Ghanaian citizens by virtue of National Liberation Council Degree (N.L.C.D. 191) para. 1(a) No.1 of 1957, s.4 (1) and the British Nationality Act 1948, and found that the plaintiff was a Ghanaian citizen by descent. As a result, he could not be deported from Ghana and required no permission from the defendant to remain in Ghana. Olympio’s case illustrates the protection of having an irrefutable nationality, as well as the importance of the rights conferred on citizens by descent in Ghana. The 1992 Constitution of Ghana also provides safeguards against the loss of Ghanaian citizenship that would result in statelessness. For instance, if a Ghanaian citizen loses his or her Ghanaian citizenship as a result of the acquisition or possession of the citizenship of a country other than Ghana, such a person, on renunciation of that other citizenship, once again becomes a citizen of Ghana. Furthermore, a citizen of Ghana who loses his or her Ghanaian citizenship as a result of being married to a citizen of another country regains, on the dissolution of that marriage, his or her Ghanaian citizenship if the effect of the dissolution is to deprive him or her of the other country’s citizenship. Section 17 of the Citizenship Act of 2000 (Act 591) 10 provides for renunciation of Ghanaian citizenship and allows any citizen of Ghana who is a citizen of another country to make a declaration of renunciation of Ghanaian citizenship and for the minister to register the renunciation. Causes of Statelessness The Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion (2019) has identified some of the causes of statelessness, including discrimination, state succession, arbitrary deprivation of nationality, administrative barriers and lack of documentation, conflict of laws, and the inheritance of statelessness (www.isi.org; see also Blitz 2009). Gender and discrimination in transferring nationality to children: It is discriminatory for a woman to 10 Citizenship Act, 2000 (Act 591).