Children Right to Nationality: National Law versus Human Rights Law

• Main Authors: Nur Amani, Pauzai, Khairun-Nisaa, Asari, Farhanim, Abdullah Asuhaimi
• Format: Conference or Workshop Item
• Language: English
• Published: 2017
• Subjects: K Law (General); KZ Law of Nations
• Online Access: http://eprints.unisza.edu.my/1100/1/FH03-FUHA-18-12647.pdf; http://eprints.unisza.edu.my/1100/
• Institution: Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) had guaranteed the right to nationality to every person. Para 1 of Article 15 of UDHR provides that everyone has the right to a nationality and para 2 further states that no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality. Deprivation of nationality is a very serious denial of human rights committed by a state against it subjects. This problem will not vanish by itself and the law that are exist today, are insufficient to curb with the matters caused by, mainly, the sovereignty of national law in deciding nationality. Therefore, it is a need to review the current law on the matter, and, perhaps, to have a new law(s) governing the matter so that the problem of statelessness among the children could be reduced or eliminated. This paper will expressed this matter using traditional legal method that mainly based on the library search. The data will be gathered from the legal documents such as international conventions, statutes, reported cases, legal journals, articles and relevant text books. By examining the relevant laws and provisions, this paper will discuss the conflict of law between municipal and international law concerning the rights of a child to acquire nationality. It also will analyse the types and grounds of discrimination in getting nationality such as race and religion and the rights of a child of a successor state to acquire a nationality of a newly established state. Lastly, this paper will propose relevant legal measures to protect the children from any elements of the discrimination of nationality and available remedies in case of denial of it.