SUB-REGIONAL OVERVIEW: THE PACIFIC SUB-REGIONAL OVERVIEW: THE PACIFIC Sub-Regional Overview: The Pacific Countries Covered: Australia, the Federated States of Micronesia (Micronesia), Fiji, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, Nauru, New Zealand, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu. Laws Citizenship Law Jus sanguinis and/or jus soli provisions It is important to note from the outset of this chapter that for most of human history within the Pacific, conceptions of borders, nationhood and States were much less defined and travel between islands was commonplace and largely free. As the Tongan scholar Epeli Hau’ofa wrote: The world of our ancestors was a large sea full of places to explore, to make their homes in, to breed generations of seafarers like themselves. … Theirs was a large world in which peoples and cultures moved and mingled unhindered by boundaries of the kind erected much later by imperial powers. From one island to another they sailed to trade and to marry, thereby expanding social networks for greater flow of wealth.1265 The structure and operation of citizenship laws across the Pacific today are varied and fundamentally shaped by colonial legacies.1266 The citizenship laws of 10 States (the Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, the Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu) all operate through jus sanguinis provisions with children born either within or outside of the States automatically considered citizens if one of their parents is a citizen of the relevant State.1267 There are similarities in the laws of Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu who all gained independence from colonial powers between 1975 and 1980 and drafted new constitutions containing citizenship provisions. Vanuatu, Nauru, and Solomon Islands amended their citizenship laws to remove gender 112 STATELESSNESS ENCYCLOPEDIA ASIA PACIFIC (DETAILED VERSION) REPORT 2024 113