2021] NATIONALITY LAWS 145 While this suggests that there may be greater state discretion in relation to denial of nationality, there is no clear dichotomy between cases of denial and cases of deprivation as may be suggested in the approach of the Committee at times. The limited exception means that in most cases the same analysis applies to racially discriminatory nationality laws whether the measure in question relates to access to or deprivation of citizenship. With regard to the burden of proof, the Court in Biao v. Denmark reiterated the well-established proposition that once differential treatment has been demonstrated, the burden of showing that it was justified is upon the state. While the Court in that case applied its longstanding notion that there might exist a margin of appreciation for a State to assess the need for differential treatment, nonetheless “very weighty reasons” 270 would be required in order to justify differential treatment on the basis of nationality. In our view it is clear that no such margin exists in the systemic denial or deprivation of nationality made— whether exclusively or in part—on the grounds of race, descent, or ethnic or national origin, given the jus cogens stature of this principle. VII. CONCLUSION Writing in 2006, just a year after General Recommendation Thirty was published, James A. Goldston noted that the General Recommendation “offers a useful legal platform for advocacy, litigation and monitoring efforts,”271 yet it is clear that such promise has not been realized. This Article has proffered a principled justification for Article 1(3)’s narrow interpretation with the aim of sharpening the Committee’s persuasiveness. More broadly, to the extent that matters of nationality are still considered a balancing act between individual rights and the prerogative of states in this domain, the interpretive jus cogens principle as it relates to norms of racial non-discrimination and the clarification of the content and contours of the peremptory norm helps to tip the balance in favor of individual rights and forecloses the possibility of excluding the 270 Biao, App. No. 38590/10, ¶ 93 (citing Gaygusuz v. Austria, App. No. 17371/90 (May 23, 1996), http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-58060); Poirrez v. France, App. No. 40892/98 (Sept. 30, 2003), http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=00161317; Andrejeva v. Latvia, App. No. 55707/00 (Feb. 18, 2009), http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-91388; Ponomaryovi v. Bulgaria, App. No. 5335/05 (Nov. 28, 2011), http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-105295). 271 James A. Goldston, Holes in the Rights Framework: Racial Discrimination, Citizenship, and the Rights of Noncitizens, 20 ETHICS & INT’L AFF. 321, 346 (2006).