2021] NATIONALITY LAWS 87 Racial Discrimination (ICERD). 11 Although ICERD generally provides strong protections against racial discrimination, 12 including in relation to “the right to nationality” in Article 5,13 Articles 1(2) and 1(3) introduce limitation provisions. Article 1(2) provides that the Convention does not apply to distinctions between nationals and non-nationals, while Article 1(3) provides that “[n]othing in this Convention may be interpreted as affecting in any way the legal provisions of States Parties concerning nationality, citizenship or naturalization, provided that such provisions do not discriminate against any particular nationality.”14 On its face, Article 1(3) might suggest that state laws and practices that target more than one nationality would not be in breach of the Convention, whether “nationality” means national or ethnic origin, or enjoyment of citizenship of a particular state. According to this interpretation, a country that has racialized citizenship laws could claim that its laws and practices affect multiple “nationalities” and therefore do not violate the Convention. Relatedly, where a state has denationalized certain ethnic groups, it might claim that the denationalized individuals are not citizens and invoke Article 1(2). Like Article 1(2), Article 1(3) on its face severely limits the “universalist ambition”15 of the Convention. The international community’s historic reluctance to properly limit Article 1(3)’s scope in a robust and principled manner may mean that Article 1(3), or its animating assumptions, continues to exert an influence on the evolution of nationality laws and practices. So long as the notion persists that matters of nationality exist within the domaine réservé of states, largely untrammeled by norms of non-discrimination, states will 11 International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, Dec. 21, 1965, T.I.A.S. No. 94-1120, 660 U.N.T.S. 195 [hereinafter ICERD]. 12 Id. art. 1(1) (“In this Convention, the term ‘racial discrimination’ shall mean any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life.”). 13 Id. art. 5 (“In compliance with the fundamental obligations laid down in article 2 of this Convention, States Parties undertake to prohibit and to eliminate racial discrimination in all its forms and to guarantee the right of everyone, without distinction as to race, colour, or national or ethnic origin, to equality before the law, notably in the enjoyment of the following rights . . . Other civil rights, in particular . . . The right to nationality . . . .”) 14 Id. art. 1(3). 15 THORNBERRY, supra note 2, at 140.