Report on Citizenship Law Ethiopia Zecharias Fassil 1 1. Introduction This work provides a description of the law of citizenship in Ethiopia under the previous and current legal regimes. A citizenship law was among the very first written laws in Ethiopia’s modern legal system. It has gone through different regimes and the confederation and secession of Eritrea have contributed vital ingredients to its shape. Descent-based citizenship and the prohibition of dual citizenship have remained unchanged through all the regimes from the time of the Emperor to the present. Intermediate solutions recognising the rights and benefits of foreigners of Ethiopian origin and explicitly allowing refugees to make use of naturalisation have brought new colour to the picture of citizenship law in Ethiopia. Naturalisation processes used to be strict, but with emergence of demanding situations they have evolved to be less strict. Contrary to the fact that the citizenship law is one of Ethiopia’s oldest laws, its subject matter is far from complex. However, limited literature exists on it and this has created gaps in terms of legal literacy both for the institutions entrusted with enforcing the law and its beneficiaries. As can be seen from the case law, there is a lack of comprehensive awareness of this special law. In greater detail, the enforcement of this law is left in the hands of administrative bodies but the absence of an administrative procedural code in Ethiopia and a slow transition to a national ID system have negatively impacted citizenship rights. This work contributes to the limited literature on citizenship law in Ethiopia by suggesting areas for improvement, both at the policy level in terms of adopting the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness and at the level of administrative measures. Ethiopia took the lead regarding citizenship law in Africa by having the first written citizenship law. This may be attributed to the fact that Ethiopia and has had a strong local governance structure and dealings with other countries for millennia, keeping its national identity intact. Ethiopian political society began to take shape in the time of the Axumite kingdom.2 Ever since then Ethiopia has managed to keep its territorial and political sovereignty, which has helped it to successfully survive aggression and colonisation attempts. It has never been colonised by European powers, with the brief exception of occupation by Italy. 1 The author is a senior fellow of the African Good Governance Network (AGGN) and Research Fellow at African Institute for Crime, Governance and Policy Research (AFRCGPR). He is highly indebted for the opportunity extended to him by the EUI and for the reviewing of the draft of this paper. The standard disclaimer applies. 2 The demarcation of the time of the commencement of modern Ethiopia is debated among historians. However, there is wide consensus on Ethiopia’s early history of civilization, with the governance and administration of citizens. RSCAS/GLOBALCIT-CR 2020/9 - © 2020 Author(s) 1