Joint Submission to the Human Rights Council Universal

The European Network on Statelessness (ENS) and the Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion (ISI) make this joint submission to the Universal Periodic Review (UPR), on the right to a nationality and human rights challenges pertaining to deprivation of nationality or citizenship stripping 1 in the Netherlands in a national security context – where nationality has been instrumentalised with a view. [...] This submission focuses on: • The prohibition of discrimination in relation to nationality deprivation measures; • The prohibition of arbitrary deprivation of nationality; • The prohibition against torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and the prevention of childhood statelessness in relation to nationality deprivation measures. [...] The Netherlands has ratified the 1954 Convention on the Status of Stateless Persons and the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. [...] In 2019, the Human Rights Committee (HRC) expressed concern “about the amendments to the Dutch Nationality Act, which provide for the revocation, in absentia, of the Dutch nationality of dual nationals based on information that they have left the country to voluntarily join the military service of a foreign State or a terrorist organization, and the implications that this would have for their fami. [...] See similarly, ‘Concluding observations on the report submitted by the Netherlands under article 8 (1) of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict’ (8 July 2015) CRC/C/OPAC/NLD/CO/1, para 15.