Zahra Albarazi persons in the world.2 The United Nations High Commissioner for refugees (UNHCR), for example, reports a total of 444,2373 persons under its statelessness mandate in the region.4 The actual figure for the number of persons who lack any nationality in the MENA region is actually much higher, including because this figure does not include the millions of stateless refugees and dispersed Palestinians.5 2. Regional Dynamics in the History of Citizenship This first half of the report sets the scene in terms of nationality law development in the MENA region by offering a broad reflection on how the contemporary nationality laws emerged and which factors have influenced their development and content. It will discuss how colonialism, and mostly independence from colonial powers, influenced the way legislation was created, how the creation of the state of Israel and the subsequent wave of pan-Arab ideology fed a particular understanding of belonging, and how the recent regional geo-politics has furthered the political manipulation of nationality in the region. . 2.1. The legacy of colonialism For many decades British and French mandates ruled the region.6 This history left a lasting legacy in the region, including by heavily influencing the legislative systems that we see today. Not only were legal scholars from the region trained in French and British legal schools, the content of colonial legislation was maintained when new laws were drawn up after independence and it was the colonial power that crafted the legislation which remains in place. The concept of ‘double ius soli’, for example, - where individuals can obtain nationality if they were born in a state and a parent and/or grandparent were also born there - was a French concept 2 A stateless persons is someone who is ‘not considered a national by any state under the operation of its law,’ as defined in Article 1 of the 1954 Convention on Statelessness 3 This figure does not include the state of Iran which UNHCR includes in a separate region, where currently there is an absence of a figure 4 In 1974 GA resolutions 3274 XXIX and 31/36, the Office of the High Commissioner was designated, pursuant to Articles 11 and 20 of the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, as the body to which a person claiming the benefits of this Convention may apply for the examination of his or her claim and for assistance in presenting it to the appropriate authorities. 5 For more information on statistical information on statelessness in the MENA see the MENA chapter of ISI, The Worlds Stateless, 2014 http://www.institutesi.org/worldsstateless.pdf 6 This follows from Ottoman rule, which also influenced the understanding of nationality in the region but which falls out of the scope of this report. For more information on this please see G. Parolin, Nationality in the Arab World. Kin, Religion and Nation State, Amsterdam University Press, 2009. 2 RSCAS/GLOBALCIT-Comp. 2017/3- © 2017 Author(s)