protected under Article 5 of the Charter.52 The present Communication will therefore be approached from that standpoint. 141. The Complainants have submitted that the restrictions imposed on Kenyan Nubians through the vetting process, excessive delays and other procedural obstacles in securing the ID cards that are necessary to obtain recognition of their Kenyan citizenship, amount to an arbitrary deprivation of the right to effective nationality, preventing recognition of their legal status. 142. According to them, Kenyan Nubians have a right to nationality under international law which is no longer the sole prerogative of the state. They claim that Nubians have established an effective and genuine link to Kenya for over a century and have thus lost all political, economic and social ties with Sudan, along with any viable claim of return to that country. They have pointed out that by requiring Kenyan Nubians to go through the vetting process, delaying citizenship for many and denying it for some, Kenyan Nubians are arbitrarily deprived of the effective enjoyment of their nationality. The deprivation is arbitrary because it is discriminatory and fails to respect due process guarantees of certainty, foreseeability, and judicial review and it leaves many Kenyan Nubians effectively stateless. 143. The Respondent State, apart from denying the allegations generally, has not made any specific submissions on this issue. It has outlined provisions of its domestic law and practices in the fight against torture, which are of no relevance in the present case. 144. The Commission notes that it is not in dispute that by operation of Kenyan law, Nubians, just like other communities which were settled in Kenya prior to independence qualify for Kenyan citizenship on an individual basis. As proof, the Respondent State submitted a list of many Nubians who are citizens, some of whom are employed in its Public Service. The Commission wishes to emphasize that the issue in the present Communication is not that Nubians cannot obtain Kenyan citizenship, but that arbitrary standards and undue hurdles are allegedly put in place by the administration which impede their access as a community to identity documents which are proof of their citizenship. 145. The Commission recalls that States enjoy a wide discretion when it comes to determining who qualifies to acquire its nationality. However, the State's discretion is limited by its obligations to prevent statelessness and the prohibition of discrimination. 146. Regarding the obligation to prevent statelessness, international law as codified in the Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons53 and the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, amongst others embody this principle. The latter Convention requires states to use their laws and administrative procedures to eliminate and prevent statelessness and to grant its nationality to a person born in its territory who would otherwise be stateless.54 It also provides that, with limited exceptions, parties to the Convention shall not deprive a person of his nationality if such deprivation would render him stateless55 Although Kenya is not a party to any of the above mentioned Conventions, it is worthy to note that these conventions outline the position of international customary law on State obligations to prevent statelessness. 147. The Commission wishes to recall that the African Charter on the Right and Welfare of the Child, which Kenya has ratified, makes it obligatory for Kenya to ensure that its Constitutional legislation recognizes the principles according to which a child shall acquire the nationality of the State in the territory of which he has been born if, at the time of the child's birth, he is not granted nationality by any other State in accordance with its laws. The African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child has found in the case of Institute for Human Rights and Development in Africa (IHRDA), and Open Society Justice Initiative on Behalf of Children of Nubian Descent in Kenya v Kenya, that the above obligation is applicable to Kenya.56 This entails that children born in Kenya of Nubian parents are entitled to Kenyan citizenship by operation of this principle given that they do not lay claim to another nationality. 148. The facts of the present case reveal that Kenya has been remiss in fulfilling its obligation to prevent Statelessness because its arbitrary administrative practices affect the ability of Nubians to obtain ID cards, which have the effect of placing them outside the State's juridical system, there by rendering many of them 19