role in determining an individual's nationality, the root causes of statelessness are complex and multifaceted including state succession, decolonization, conflicting laws between States, domestic changes to nationality laws, and discrimination.14 46. Whatever the root cause(s), the African Committee cannot overemphasise the overall negative impact of statelessness on children. While it is always no fault of their own, stateless children often inherits an uncertain future. For instance, they might fail to benefit from protections and constitutional rights granted by the State. These include difficulty to travel freely, difficulty in accessing justice procedures when necessary, as well as the challenge of finding oneself in a legal limbo vulnerable to expulsion from their home country. Statelessness is particularly devastating to children in the realisation of their socioeconomic rights such as access to health care, and access to education. In sum, being stateless as a child is generally antithesis to the best interests of children. 47. At the global level, a range of instruments recognise the right to acquire a nationality, albeit with varying formulations.15 Here, it is worth mentioning that, as Doek rightly explains, international human rights law has shifted from the position that “the child shall be entitled from his birth (...) to a nationality”,16 to one mandating that the child “shall acquire a nationality” (Article 7(1) of CRC, Article 24(3) of ICCPR).17The same wording and position is transparent under Article 6 of the African Children’s Charter. The reason for such a shift is because it is felt that “a State could not accept an unqualified obligation to accord its nationality to every child born on its territory regardless the circumstances”.18 48. Therefore, under general international law, States set the rules for acquisition, change and loss of nationality as part of their sovereign power. However, although states maintain the sovereign right to regulate nationality, in the African Committee’s view, state discretion must be and is indeed limited by international human rights standards, in this particular case the African Children’s Charter, as well as customary international law and general principles of law that protect individuals against arbitrary state actions. In particular, states are limited in their discretion to grant nationality by their obligations to guarantee equal protection and to prevent, avoid, and reduce statelessness.19 49. This as a backdrop, the Government of Kenya has adopted its rules that provide for conditions by which a person can become a Kenyan citizen. Pursuant to Chapter IV of the former Constitution of Kenya and the Kenya Citizenship Act, Cap 170 of the Laws of Kenya, the four ways through which a person may acquire Kenyan citizenship are birth, descent, See S Kosinski “ State of uncertainty: Citizenship, statelessness, and discrimination in the Dominican Republic” (2009) 32 Boston College International and Comparative Law Review 377. 15 These instruments include the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR); International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR); International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD); Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW); Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC); International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families (CMW); and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). 16 Principle 3 of the UN Declaration on the Rights of the Child of 1959. 17 Doek (note 12 above). 18 As above. 19 In this regard, the African Committee is of the view that African States, including Kenya, need to be encouraged and supported to ratify and implement fully the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons and the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. 14 10