Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, if he will take steps to ensure that arbitrary revocation of citizenship is on the agenda for the next session of the UN Human Rights Council.

The UK does not intend to press for this topic to be considered at the March 2017 session of the Human Rights Council (HRC), as the HRC traditionally considers the issue of the deprivation of nationality at its June session, on either an annual or biennial basis. The most recent resolution on the topic of arbitrary deprivation of nationality was adopted by consensus at the June 2016 session of the HRC. The text of the resolution calls upon States to refrain from taking discriminatory measures and from enacting or maintaining legislation that would arbitrarily deprive persons of their nationality on the grounds of race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status, including disability, especially if such measures and legislation render a person stateless. It also urges States to adopt and implement nationality legislation with a view to avoiding statelessness, consistent with the principles of international law, in particular by preventing the arbitrary deprivation of nationality and statelessness as a result of State succession.