International law imposes express limits on States’ “ powers to regulate nationality law […] It is our clear view that the widespread use of citizenship stripping, in the name of countering terrorism, is inconsistent with the spirit and intention of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons and the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, as well as other provisions of international human rights law and customary international law”.5 There have also been a number of interventions in individual cases, including a joint communication by six UN mandate holders in the case of Fatima H. in the Netherlands,6 and amicus curiae by the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism on the appeals filed by Shamima Begum in the United Kingdom.7 In the regular monitoring of state practice through the UN Treaty Body system,8 the evolution of nationality deprivation powers has also received some attention. Of the 37 countries that introduced or amended the scope of their legislation regarding citizenship deprivation, 35 were reviewed at least once by at least a UN Treaty Body after they changed their legislation.9 In total, 188 sets of Concluding Observations were addressed to these 35 countries after their change in legislation by the Human Rights Committee (CCPR), the Committee Against Torture (CAT), the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC), the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CEDAW) and the Committee on Migrant Workers (CMW). An analysis of the recommendations contained in these Concluding Observations reveals that only five focus explicitly on the deprivation of nationality in a national security context. Nine address deprivation of citizenship more broadly and 11 refer more generally to the counter-terrorism measures adopted by the state. Out of the total of 188 sets of recommendations issued, language on citizenship deprivation and issues raised by wider counter-terrorism legislation is included in just 25 of these.10 This shows significant room for improvement in the measure of attention devoted by the Treaty Body system to the issue. Nevertheless, those recommendations that have been provided to states address a variety of the different concerns that nationality deprivation powers raise under international law, as set out in the following paragraphs.11 5.2. STATELESSNESS A close corollary to the right to a nationality is the duty to avoid statelessness, which is considered “a fundamental principle of international law”12 and has been acknowledged as an obligation of customary international law.13 Article 8(1) of the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, for instance, prohibits the deprivation of nationality of a person “if such deprivation would render him stateless”. As such, in seeking to deprive a person of their nationality, states must make every effort to determine whether such deprivation would render a person stateless. This is an exercise that is neither historic nor predictive. The question to be answered is whether at the point of deprivation, the individual is considered by the competent authority of any other state, as a national under the operation of its law.14 Establishing whether a person is considered as a national under the operation of a state’s law requires a careful analysis of how the competent authority of a state applies its nationality laws in an individual’s case in practice; it is a mixed question of law and fact.15 As discussed in Section 3.1, only around a quarter of countries that provide for deprivation of citizenship due to disloyalty expressly state in their law that this may not result in statelessness. 34 In contrast, 73% of states fail to prescribe a safeguard against statelessness. In those countries that have introduced or expanded deprivation powers since the year 2000, the legislative practice is somewhat better: safeguards are present in 16 of these 37 countries, equating to around 43%. This suggests that although the trend has been towards expanding the use of deprivation of nationality as a national security measure since the terror attacks of 9/11, more states recognise that statelessness is to be avoided. In their review of states that have introduced or expanded nationality deprivation powers, the UN Treaty Bodies have paid attention to the issue of statelessness. The CEDAW, for instance, recommended in its concluding observations on Kazakhstan that when legislation allows for deprivation of nationality on national security grounds, it should provide: against the arbitrary deprivation of nationality “ safeguards with a view to preventing statelessness, including the right to lodge an appeal with suspensive effect and the availability of effective remedies, which should include the possibility of restoring nationality”.16 The CCPR, with regard to the United Kingdom, held that “the State party should also ensure that appropriate standards and procedures are in place to avoid rendering an individual stateless”.17 In all, five of the 25 relevant recommendations issued by the UN Treaty Bodies (i.e., 20%) make specific reference to the need to avoid statelessness from arising from deprivation of nationality.18 5.3. NON-DISCRIMINATION Deprivation of nationality is further constrained by the principle of non-discrimination, which is one of the foundational tenets of international human rights law. The rights to equality and nondiscrimination are, as such, enshrined in all the core international and regional human rights treaties, with the 1961 Convention specifically providing that a person or a group of persons may not be deprived of their nationality “on racial, ethnic, religious or political grounds”.19 It therefore follows that states must not deprive any person or group of persons of their nationality as a result of direct or indirect discrimination in law or practice, on any ground prohibited under international law. The 2016 resolution of the UN Human Rights Council on this issue provides the following non-exhaustive list of discriminatory grounds in relation to understanding when the deprivation of nationality is arbitrary: “race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth, or other status, including disability”.20 Measures of deprivation exercised on these grounds are prohibited under international law.21 Discrimination can either be direct or indirect, each of which is equally prohibited under international law. An example of direct discrimination can be found in the policy of limiting provisions on deprivation of citizenship to certain categories of citizens, such as naturalised citizens, which is often specified explicitly. In this case, the differential treatment thus derives directly from the citizenship status of the person – or their 'national or social origin'. Indirect discrimination, by contrast, is more covert, and may exist when an apparently neutral policy of deprivation has discriminatory effects. As has been discussed in previous sections of this report, states regularly provide that citizenship may be deprived insofar it does not risk rendering the individual stateless, which is in line with the duty to avoid statelessness under international law. This seemingly neutral provision, however, may generate significant indirect discriminatory effects, because it leads states to differentiate between 'mono nationals' – those in possession of one citizenship – and individuals with multiple nationalities. Citizenship, then, is only deprived of the latter, because they are not rendered stateless by such decision. While such discrimination is purportedly justified on the basis of