STATELESSNESS AND CITIZENSHIP IN THE EAST AFRICAN COMMUNITY with its laws”. The purely descent-based systems in Burundi and Kenya place significant numbers at risk of statelessness. This is exacerbated in Burundi by the conflict between the constitution and the law, in particular in relation to gender discrimination in transmission of citizenship to children. The conflict between law and its interpretation in Tanzania, coupled with the exclusion of decisions relating to citizenship from any review by the courts, creates a level of executive discretion around determination of citizenship that is extreme by international standards. Tanzania is also the only EAC Partner State to lack a legal provision to protect children of unknown parents from statelessness. The explicitly ethnic basis for citizenship in Uganda and South Sudan creates challenges of its own, but the descent-based system in Kenya and Burundi, and in Tanzania as implemented, mean that even in those countries it is often necessary to show a connection to an ethnic group “originating from” the country, or— in the Commonwealth countries—an ancestor who qualified to become a citizen based on the transitional provisions at independence. Only Rwanda creates rights to acquire citizenship based on birth in the territory (a provision introduced since 2004), so that people who have been born and brought up in Rwanda can under the law apply for citizenship at majority if they wish to become Rwandan, in a non-discretionary procedure. Thanks to their legal heritage, none of the EAC countries have the legal provision common in West Africa, deriving from French law, that a person born in the territory of one parent also born there becomes automatically a citizen at birth. The adoption of this rule, and regulations and procedures to create the rules of evidence for it to be implemented, would immediately greatly reduce the numbers of people at risk of statelessness. Another rule from the French tradition that is helpful in West Africa is the concept that a person who has always been treated as a national and exercised rights as a national (is in possession d’état de national, usually translated as having the “apparent status” of a national) can obtain a court order confirming that status, based on certain rules of evidence. There are many people lacking evidence of their citizenship, thanks to low rates of birth registration and documentation in general, that could be helped by such a procedure. The reduced fees available in Uganda for those applying to register as citizens on the basis that they “consider themselves as Ugandans except for the citizenship papers” is an example of the same recognition that it may be impossible to produce documentation showing entitlement to citizenship. Similarly, the principle of “collective effect” common in civil law systems (including Rwanda and Burundi), by which children acquire nationality at the same time as a parent who is naturalising, if included within the application, is absent in the common law countries: this is another procedural measure that facilitates access to nationality without requiring separate applications for nationality on behalf of all children in a family, or having to wait until they are themselves adults. Where rights based on birth in the country do not exist, provisions on acquisition of nationality after birth become more important. A high level of executive discretion reduces the accessibility of any such provisions, and this remains problematic in most EAC states, though to a lesser extent in Rwanda and Burundi. In practice, acquisition of citizenship by adults is very difficult in all EAC Partner States, with only a few hundred at maximum acquiring nationality each year, excluding Tanzania’s exceptional mass naturalisation programmes for refugees.346 The legal framework for naturalisation appears to be most difficult in Uganda, where twenty years’ residence is required, and there are significant restrictions on the periods of residence that count towards that total, including periods of residence as a dependent. Tanzania fails to provide for acquisition of citizenship by adopted children or by children whose parents are naturalising; while the regular processes of naturalisation in Tanzania are amongst the most elaborate and expensive (US$5,000) anywhere in the world. Uganda is highly unusual in failing to provide that the child of a naturalised or registered citizen born after the parent acquired citizenship does not automatically become a citizen at birth. This leaves many at great risk of statelessness, despite the partial permission for dual citizenship in place since 2005, especially since children are not eligible for dual citizenship. Countries that have a purely descent-based nationality law have a particular obligation to increase access to nationality based on long-residence or other criteria. Among populations at risk of statelessness, especially children born in their territory who cannot claim the nationality of their parents (for reasons of law or fact), 346 See heading on Access to Naturalisation in section 4 of this report. UNHCR / September 2018 81