A/HRC/7/19/Add.5 A/HRC/7/23/Add.3 Page 28 Haitianism have been conflated. The independent expert believes that these attitudes have provided a kind of moral license for harsh discriminatory policies and practices toward Haitians, the unjust denial of their rights to legal status and citizenship, disregard for their inhumane living conditions, for example on the bateyes and the hyper-exploitation of their labour. 105. The independent expert fully supports the findings and judgement of the Inter-American Court in the case of Yean and Bosico vs. the Dominican Republic and its observations inter alia that: nationality is the legal bond that guarantees individuals the full enjoyment of all human rights as a member the political community; although States maintain the sovereign right to regulate nationality, their discretion must be limited by international human rights standards that protect individuals against arbitrary State actions; States are particularly limited in their discretion to grant nationality by their obligations to guarantee equal protection before the law and to prevent, avoid, and reduce statelessness; in granting nationality, States must abstain from producing and enforcing regulations that are discriminatory on the face of it or that have adverse discriminatory effects on certain population groups. 106. Nationality is a fundamental human right and if there is no other nationality available at birth, to avoid statelessness there is a right to the nationality of the State in which the person is born. No person should be arbitrarily deprived of their nationality. 107. Furthermore, while States may create distinctions in the enjoyment of certain benefits between citizens, non-citizens with lawful status and non-citizens without lawful status, the content of the distinction must comply strictly with human rights norms. Under no circumstances can those distinctions be allowed to create an adverse impact on a certain category of people, by intention or consequence, based on race, colour or national origin. 108. While the possession of identity documents does not ipso facto determine status, lack of documents creates extreme vulnerability to arbitrary denial of rights and legal personality, particularly procedural due process. In this case, there is sufficient evidence that documents are being denied or withheld on racially discriminatory grounds. Ultimately, persons of Haitian descent are being denied the full enjoyment of their right to citizenship on a racially discriminatory basis. 109. As concluded by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the “in transit” exception in the Constitution to the granting of citizenship based on jus soli cannot be interpreted to include illegal migrants and there is no requirement that legality is a precondition to exercising the right of nationality by birth. The independent expert concludes, therefore, that the Migration Law No. 285-04 is in conflict with article 11 of the Dominican Constitution. She is concerned that there are indications that it will be given retroactive application and that will have far-reaching discriminatory effects on the legal status of Dominicans of Haitian descent and Haitian migrants in regard to access to citizenship. Application of this law to persons born in the Dominican Republic when the Constitution’s jus soli provision was interpreted to grant them nationality would be manifestly unjust and discriminatory against this particular minority group. It will render them stateless. 110. Measures undertaken by the Government and implemented by the Central Electoral Board, including via the establishment of a separate birth registration regime for newborns of