Suchergebnisse

Few African countries provide for an explicit right to a nationality. Laws and practices governing citizenship effectively leave hundreds of thousands of people in Africa without a country. These stateless Africans can neither vote nor stand for office; they cannot enrol their children in school, travel freely, or own property; they cannot work for the government; they are exposed to human rights abuses. Statelessness exacerbates and underlies tensions in many regions of the continent. Citizenship Law in Africa, a comparative study by two programs of the Open Society Foundations, describes the often arbitrary, discriminatory, and contradictory citizenship laws that exist from state to state and recommends ways that African countries can bring their citizenship laws in line with international rights norms. The report covers topics such as citizenship by descent, citizenship by naturalisation, gender discrimination in citizenship law, dual citizenship, and the right to identity documents and passports. It is essential reading for policymakers, attorneys, and activists. This third edition is a comprehensive revision of the original text, which is also updated to reflect developments at national and continental levels. The original tables presenting comparative analysis of all the continent's nationality laws have been improved, and new tables added on additional aspects of the law. Since the second edition was published in 2010, South Sudan has become independent and adopted its own nationality law, while there have been revisions to the laws in Côte d'Ivoire, Kenya, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Namibia, Niger, Senegal, Seychelles, South Africa, Sudan, Tunisia and Zimbabwe. The African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights and the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child have developed important new normative guidance.

Few African countries provide for an explicit right to a nationality. Laws and practices governing citizenship effectively leave hundreds of thousands of people in Africa without a country. These stateless Africans can neither vote nor stand for office; they cannot enrol their children in school, travel freely, or own property; they cannot work for the government; they are exposed to human rights abuses. Statelessness exacerbates and underlies tensions in many regions of the continent. Citizenship Law in Africa, a comparative study by two programs of the Open Society Foundations, describes the often arbitrary, discriminatory, and contradictory citizenship laws that exist from state to state and recommends ways that African countries can bring their citizenship laws in line with international rights norms. The report covers topics such as citizenship by descent, citizenship by naturalisation, gender discrimination in citizenship law, dual citizenship, and the right to identity documents and passports. It is essential reading for policymakers, attorneys, and activists. This second edition includes updates on developments in Kenya, Libya, Namibia, South Africa, Sudan and Zimbabwe, as well as minor corrections to the tables and other additions throughout.

The right to legal identity, previously neglected by the development community, has gained recognition by the adoption of a target in the SDGs to 'provide legal identity for all, including birth registration'. In the initial absence of definition of 'legal identity' beyond birth registration, different actors have interpreted the target according to their own priorities, whether they be human rights protection, development, national security – or rent-seeking. Long-standing scholarship recognises both the positive and negative potential impacts of state identification systems; the adoption of new biometric technologies strengthens these potential impacts, for good or ill. The importance of data protection and the risks to privacy created by digital technologies are well-recognised. This article returns to arguments made by Simon Szreter in World Development in 2007, to argue the critical importance of independent oversight of executive decisions relating to legal identity; it adds an emphasis on the detailed regulation of enrolment processes, and the importance of nationality law reforms, as government-backed identity schemes are upgraded or introduced. The article argues that the introduction of new 'foundational' national identification systems for adults and more pervasive requirements for proof of identity, without simultaneously addressing gaps in the legal framework governing the determination of legal status, risks making the problems around proof of legal identity worse rather than better.

The case of Anudo v. Tanzania is the first decided by the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights that considers the right to a nationality. The judgment complements existing jurisprudence from the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights and the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child. The Court ruled that Tanzania had arbitrarily deprived the applicant of his nationality and then arbitrarily expelled him from the country.

"Citizenship Law as the Foundation for Political Participation in Africa" published on by Oxford University Press.