Statelessness Working Paper Series No. 2017/01 primarily as an instrument of exclusion.7 Such exclusion has taken place through legal means (e.g., refusal of naturalisation and differential rights of citizens and secondary citizens) or through discriminatory practices.8 In the worst cases this may lead to statelessness, meaning the status of those persons who are not considered as national by any state under the operation of its law.9 Needless to say, lacking citizenship leads to a myriad of other human rights violations and seriously hampers the life opportunities of anyone. 2. General Ne Win’s citizenship law Twenty years after taking power and after various episodes of inter-ethnic and inter-religious violence, including the 1978 ‘Operation Dragon King’ in Rakhine which led to mass forced displacement of Muslims across the border of the recently independent Bangladesh, the military regime of General Ne Win enacted the 1982 Citizenship Law. The law sought to further define the country’s ‘indigeny’ by addressing what the regime perceived as a historical wrong: the incoming of migrants during the colonial area and to relegate anyone not belonging to such indigenous population to a lower citizenship status. The law signified a considerable shift towards an exclusively ethnic conception of citizenship from the 1947 Constitution of Burma and the 1948 Union Citizenship Law, which defined belonging to the indigenous races as criteria for accessing citizenship, but also allowed naturalisation through residence. Between 1947 and 1982, foreigners could also apply for naturalisation under certain conditions.10 Jus soli provisions benefitted persons whose four grandparents were permanent residents and whose parents and themselves were born in (the then called) Burma.11 Ne Win’s law removed such inclusive provisions and established a fully ethnicised regime which up until today discriminates against citizens not belonging to the recognised national groups.12 The 1982 law established that, with a number of exceptions, only persons belonging to eight national groups were full citizens (Bamar, Chin, Kayah, Kayin, Kachin, Mon, Rakhine, and Shan, which were later subdivided into 135 sub-groups through an administrative instruction).13 For those not belonging to such groups, the law created an ad hoc category of second class citizenship, called naing-ngan-thapyu-khwint-ya-thu and translated into English as ‘naturalised citizens’. In reality, the definition of ‘naturalised citizen’ as per the 1982 law means a person not belonging to the recognised national groups and who descends from pre-independence residents of Myanmar. In addition, the law also created the category of eh-naing-ngan-tha, translated to English as ‘associate citizens’, meaning persons not belonging to the eight recognised national groups who had applied for citizenship within 7 Lian Kwen Fee, “Citizenship Regimes and the Politics of Difference in South East Asia”, Working Paper No. 8, Institute of Asian Studies, Universiti Brunei Daruussalam, 2013, 4. 8 Ibid. 5. 9 Article 1, 1954 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons. 10 A foreigner could apply if he or she had reached the age of majority, five years of continuous residence in the country, good character, able to speak any of the indigenous languages, intention to reside in the country after naturalisation or to enter or continue in state service, take an oath of allegiance, and renounce all foreign citizenships Arts. 7 and 11 of the 1948 Union Citizenship Act. 11 Art. 5 (a), Ibid. Overall, the 1947 Constitution of Burma and the 1948 Union Citizenship Act permitted the automatic acquisition of citizenship at birth in three cases: persons belonging to the “indigenous races”, persons who had at least one grandparent who belonged to one of the “indigenous races” and persons whose four grandparents were permanent residents and whose parents and themselves were born in Burma. 12 In the case of Girls Yean and Bosco v. the Dominican Republic, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights indicated that citizenship legislation should not use ethnic criteria in a discriminatory manner. Girls Yean and Bosco v. the Dominican Republic 8 September 2005, Inter-American Court of Human Rights in Gerard-René de Groot & Olivier Willem Vonk, International Standards on Nationality Law, Texts, Cases and Materials, WLP, Oisterwijk (2015) p. 681. 13 Art. 3, Myanmar 1982 Citizenship Law. The exceptions are described in Arts. 5, 6 and 7 of the law and can be summarised as follows: full citizens are also those who were citizens on the date the 1982 law entered into force; those persons where at least one of the parents is a citizen, and the grandchildren of naturalised and associate citizens whose parents are naturalised or associate citizens as well. 2