Report on Citizenship Law: Ethiopia An intriguing issue raised by the drafters of the constitution was “when the constitution states that a person born to an Ethiopian parent is an Ethiopian, is this a matter of choice or obligation?” A consensus was reached among the drafters that for a child born to parents with mixed nationalities nationality is a matter of choice not an obligation. This reaffirmed that children born to Ethiopian parents in the US or another ius soli jurisdiction are not under an obligation to be Ethiopian but it is their individual choice to claim the nationality they want, even if dual nationality is not an option. Furthermore, some members invited a legal professional to elaborate on the dual nationality issue but the archive does not include anything further on this. With the adoption of the federal democratic form of government, in 1995 the FDRE constitution had the most progressive human rights norms. As Adem argues, the relevance accorded to human rights is reflected from the outset in the preamble to the FDRE Constitution, which strongly affirms “the full respect for individual and people’s fundamental rights.”34 Unusually among African constitutions, the 1995 constitution explicitly provides for the right to a nationality in its text.35 The archives of the committee do not record a justification for including such a constitutional provision, although as constitutional drafting takes some lessons from preceding constitutions, the inspiration might have come from there. Another possibility is that if the constitution is to champion itself as vehemently adamant about human rights, stating nationality rights is systematically meaningful as nationality provides access to a wide range of human and democratic rights. 5.3. The Ethiopian-Eritrean war, 1998-2000 The Ethiopian-Eritrean war that broke out in 1998-2000 had tremendous implications for citizenship law and in many ways can be seen as a linchpin for the shape and content of recent nationality law. Apart from the constitutional guidance on the issuance of a special law on nationality, the secession of Eritrea and the aftermath of the subsequent war was the prime guiding force behind the existing nationality law. The reason is that the war raised the very sensitive issue of who is Ethiopian or Eritrean. As there was no clear law, decisions on nationality were based on participation in the referendum and the situation was painful for tens of thousands of people who had lived for long in and were forced to be deported from Ethiopia and Eritrea.36 The following is an extract from a Human Rights Watch document which backs up the above reasoning in greater detail:37 Ethiopian authorities launched a vast campaign to round up and expel people of Eritrean origin from Ethiopia in June 1998. Most had been born in Ethiopia when Eritrea was still held to be a part of that country – and had no other recognised citizenship other than Ethiopian. Most adults had spent all or most of their working lives in Ethiopia, outside of Eritrea. Ethiopian authorities in June 1998 announced the planned expulsion of residents who posed a security risk to the state, to include members of Eritrean political and community organisations, and 34 Adem Kassie, Human rights Under the Ethiopian Constitution: Descriptive Overview, Mizan Law review Vol. 5 No 1 (2011). 35 Bronwen Manby, Citizenship in Law in Africa - A Comparative Study, Open Society Foundations, 3rd edition, 2016, p 4. 36 See, Human Rights Watch: The Horn of African War: Mass expulsion and the Nationality Issue, January 2003 https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/ethioerit0103.pdf 37 Ibid. RSCAS/GLOBALCIT-CR 2020/9 - © 2020 Author(s) 11