Comparative Regional Report on Citizenship Law: Oceania may relate to the potential gaps and inconsistencies in the various citizenship laws enacted over that time.39 3.2 Acquisition of citizenship after birth There are two main ways in which the laws of Oceanic states provide for the acquisition of citizenship after birth. The first reflects the post-colonial circumstances of states in Oceania. Newly independent nation states had to define the membership of their people, transforming colonial subjects into citizens. This was achieved by automatically conferring citizenship on certain classes of people at the date of independence, or providing for their registration as citizens (Part 3.2.1). The second mechanism for the acquisition of citizenship after birth is naturalisation. In Oceania, there are a range of grounds for naturalisation, including residence in the country for a defined period and descent. There are also several categories of persons who have preferential access to citizenship by naturalisation, such as the spouses of citizens, former citizens and those who have made a special contribution to the state (Part 3.2.2). 3.2.1 Acquisition of citizenship upon independence Prior to independence, the peoples of the Pacific islands were subject to various citizenship regimes imposed by colonising powers. Some of the peoples of what are now Fiji, Kiribati, Solomon Islands and Tuvalu were designated citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies or British protected persons by British law. 40 Some people were given ‘belonger status’ in a particular territory, based on ancestry or residence. Even if formally given citizenship of the colonial power, Pacific Islanders were often still restricted in their movements. For example, although they were Australian citizens, Indigenous people in the Australian territory of Papua “had no right to enter or remain in Australia, or even to leave their own country”.41 Upon independence, constitution makers were faced with the question of how to transform the subjects of a colony into citizens of a nation-state. Resolving this issue was not always straightforward. As explained in Part 2, it was complicated by the desire to unite sometimes diverse Indigenous peoples in the one nation and by questions about non-Indigenous peoples who had settled in Oceanic states. There were different ways in which the constitutions of independent states conferred citizenship upon their peoples at the date of independence. (i) Reference to previous citizenship status The first way was to define the citizenship of the new state by reference to the citizenship of the former colony. This was the preferred approach of British colonial officials, who sought to implement the policy, approved by the British parliament, that all British protected persons and citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies connected to the territory by birth, naturalisation or registration, and the children of such persons, should be entitled to citizenship of the newly 39 An issue highlighted in the decision of the Fiji High Court in State v Registration Officer, Tailevu Fijian Provincial Constituency ex parte Samuela Matawalu [1995] 41 FLR 204. 40 Hassall (n 24) 53. 41 Thwaites (n 1) 12. RSCAS/GLOBALCIT-Comp 2020/1 - © 2020 Author 9