The REFERENCES privilege applies at both the table and column levels. It is required on all columns referenced, whether implicitly or explicitly, in a FOREIGN KEY clause of a CREATE TABLE or ALTER TABLE statement. The system grants this privilege automatically, with grant authority, to the creator of a table. Owners acquire the privilege implicitly.
If you specify a column list (a list of parenthetically enclosed, comma-separated column names, for example (column_name_1, ..., column_name_n)) with the keywords INSERT, REFERENCES, SELECT, or UPDATE, and the specified grantee set already has the privilege specified at the table level with the indicated grant authority, then the system accepts the statement but takes no action. This is because having INSERT, REFERENCES, SELECT, or UPDATE privileges at table level also enables that action against all of its columns.