CITIZENSHIP AND STATELESSNESS IN THE HORN OF AFRICA \Y signing various treaties with Somali clan leaders during the late 19 century. In 1936, following the second Italian invasion and conquest of Ethiopia, the Italian territories of Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia were merged into Italian East Africa (Africa Orientale Italiana). Tne northern Somaii territory came under British control in the 1880s, and in 1898 was formally declared to be the Protectorate of British Somaliland. (See further the headings below: The Federal Member States of Somalia and the status of Somaliland, and Minorities in Somalia.) Following the 1941 defeat of Italian forces in Ethiopia, the Eritrea and Somalia governorates of Italian East Africa came under British military administration. Britain had also occupied the Ogaden region of Ethiopia, largely inhabited by people of Somali ethnicity; this was restored to Ethiopian administration in 1948. In 1949 the United accordance with agreements provisions of the UN November Nations designated among Charter. Eritrea and the allied powers Italian Somalia was 1949, and designated Italian Somalia at the Potsdam removed from as UN trust territories, Conference of 1945 administration, which was restored on 1 April 1950. and the British military administration a UN trust territory (the Trust Territory of Somaliland) in under in Italian British Somaliland remained a protectorate until 26 June 1960, when an independence constitution came into force — for less than one week.? On 1 July 1960 the Italian-administered territory also gained independence, and the two territories were joined together to form the Somali Republic, under a constitution approved by referendum in 1961 (though with significant rejection of the constitution by the northern regions).* Eritrea initially remained under British administration as a UN trust territory. However, a further UN resolution adopted in 1950 designated Eritrea “an autonomous unit federated with Ethiopia under the sovereignty of the Ethiopian Crown’”.® In accordance with this resolution Ethiopia incorporated Eritrea as an autonomous territory under imperial jurisdiction in 1952. A proclamation stated that “all inhabitants of the territory of Eritrea except persons possessing another nationality are hereby declared to be subjects of Our Empire and Ethiopian nationals”; as well as “all inhabitants born in the territory of Eritrea and having at least one indigenous parent or grandparent”. If those living in the territory had another nationality, they were permitted to renounce Ethiopian nationality within six months and retain the foreign nationality.6 In 1962, Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie dissolved the federation and annexed Eritrea as a province of Ethiopia, the status it retained until independence became An in 1993. All inhabitants of Eritrea Ethiopian nationals. Eritrean succeeded Liberation Movement was founded in by the Eritrean Liberation Front in 1961. 1958, seeking independence from Ethiopia, In 1970, a splinter group formed the Eritrean 3 Laurie Fransman, Adrian Berry, and Alison Harvey, Fransman’s British Nationality Law, 3rd ed. (London: Bloomsbury Professional, 2011), catalogue entry on Somalia. See also the history set out at http://www.somalilandlaw.com/citizenship_law.htm. 4 Referendum on the 1960 Somali Republic Constitution, 20 June 1961, Official Returns Table 1, extracted at SomalilandLaw.com http://www.somalilandlaw.com/The_1961_Referendum_Table_1.pdf. > UN General Assembly Resolution, “Eritrea: Report of the United Nations Commission for Eritrea; Report of the interim Committee of the General Assembly on the report of the United Nations Commission for Eritrea”, 2 December 1950, UN Doc A/RES/390(V). 6 imperial Order for the Federal Incorporation and Inclusion of the Territory of Eritrea within the Empire of Ethiopia, No. 6 of 1952 (Negarit Gazeta 12th Year No.1) as quoted in Fasil Nahum, ‘Ethiopian Nationality Law and Practice’, Journal of Ethiopian Law 8, no. 1 (1972): 168-83. See also Zecharias Fassil, ‘Report on Citizenship Law : Ethiopia’, GLOBALCIT Country Reports (Firenze: European University Institute, 2020), https://cadmus.eui.eu/handle/1814/66827. 8 UNHCR — December 2021