withdrawal of ration card and confiscation of property in combination with threat of violence; withdrawal of state benefits, in combination with inability to obtain employment or accommodation due to ethnic origin; denial of state benefits such as housing, food and clothing benefits and subsidies in a state-controlled economy; severe discrimination in ‘most civil, social and economic rights’ such that the applicant would suffer ‘a life of destitution’.62 The key issue is the extent to which ‘persecution is understood to be concerned fundamentally with serious violations of human dignity’ in the jurisprudence of domestic courts.63 Section 4 shows some engagement by courts with this issue when examining claims based on ethnic and racial discrimination of Faili Kurds, Roma, Rohingya of Myanmar, refugees from Bhutan, the Bidoons in the Gulf States, and Dominicans of Haitian descent in the Dominican Republic. In sum, denationalization done arbitrarily, including on discriminatory grounds, is prohibited under international law, namely, international human rights law. In most cases, deprivation of nationality leading to statelessness will also be contrary to international norms of human rights law, stateless law and possibly also refugee law (as this paper will show). Only most exceptionally can a State lawfully deprive a national of its nationality even where such act would result in statelessness. Article 7(1)(b), read together with article 7(3) of the 1997 European Convention on Nationality,64 may be given as an example of a provision permitting loss of nationality even where it leads to statelessness, if nationality has been obtained by means of fraudulent conduct, false information or concealment of any relevant fact attributable to the applicant, under the theory of abuse of rights; these exceptions are to be interpreted restrictively.65 In such cases, ‘States are free either to revoke the nationality (loss) or to consider that the person never acquired their nationality (void ab initio)’, 66 and practice varies in each Contracting State. The 1961 Statelessness Convention also allows deprivation of nationality obtained by misrepresentation or fraud even where it would lead to the person being stateless.67 Both the 1961 Statelessness Convention and the 1997 European Convention on Nationality further provide for the possibility of a State lawfully depriving its national of nationality on grounds of ‘conduct seriously prejudicial to the vital interests of the State Party’.68 Explanatory Report to the 1997 European Convention on Nationality explains that Ibid, 105-106. Ibid, 103. 64 Council of Europe, ETS no 166. 65 E.g., Case C-135/08 Rottmann v Bayern [2010] ECR I- 1449. 66 Explanatory Report, Article 7(1)(b), 1997 European Convention on Nationality. 67 Article 8(2)(b), 1961 Statelessness Convention. 68 Article 8(3)(a)ii, 1961 Statelessness Convention; Article 7(d), 1997 European Convention on Nationality. See also, UN HRC, ‘Human rights and arbitrary deprivation of nationality: report of the Secretary-General’, 19 December 2013, A/HRC/25/28, paras 12-13 and 18-19. Note that both the 1961 Statelessness Convention and the 1997 European Convention on Nationality also provide for lawful deprivation of nationality where a person 62 63 11