Report on Citizenship Law: Ethiopia constitution rules that foreign nationals cannot own immovable property. Litigants who are not aware of the proclamation that increases the rights of the Ethiopian diaspora tend to assume the diaspora has no legal protection of immovable properties. However, this privilege is not an absolute one. In another case a person claimed he was a foreign national of Ethiopian origin and he based his claim on a statement that his grandfather was Ethiopian. However, as he could not produce evidence to that end he could not enforce his alleged right to an immovable property. 6.4. Statelessness An expert on comparative citizenship law in Africa, Bronwen Manby, argues that the Ethiopian citizenship law does not comply with the constitution as it does not provide a right to nationality for a child born in the country who would otherwise be stateless.58 Ethiopian law does provide some safeguards against statelessness for those who are recognised as Ethiopian nationals. Article 33 of the Constitution provides that “No Ethiopian national shall be deprived of his or her Ethiopian nationality against his or her will.” Under the current nationality proclamation, renunciation of Ethiopian nationality is only allowed when acquisition of a foreign nationality is established. In the words of the law, “Any Ethiopian who has acquired or has been guaranteed the acquisition of the nationality of another state shall have the right to renounce his Ethiopian nationality.”59 An additional striking feature of Ethiopian nationality law is that all citizens have equal rights, regardless of how their nationality was obtained.60 However, it is important to notice that there are still cases of people born in Ethiopia to stateless parents or parents of unknown nationality or parents who cannot transmit their nationality to their children. The Ethiopian nationality law is silent on governing these cases as it lags behind in providing protection against statelessness to children who do not acquire the nationality of a parent at birth, as is required by obligations under the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child.61 It is also important to note that Ethiopia has not yet ratified the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. 7. Institutions for implementing nationality law in Ethiopia The implementation of nationality law requires the involvement of different stakeholders. In the context of Ethiopia, the primary stakeholders are the Nationality Affairs Committee, the Ministry of Peace, the Immigration Nationality and vital Events Agency, kebeles and courts. The 2003 nationality law establishes the Security, Immigration and Refugee Affairs Authority as custodian of the law.62 However, in an attempt to assist the work of the authority, a Nationality Affairs committee was established. This committee has the power and duty to 58 Bronwen Manby, Citizenship Law in Africa: A Comparative study, OSI, 3rd edition, 2016 p 45, at https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/uploads/d5d1d086-1a0d-4088-b679-003e09e9c125/citizenship-lawafrica-third-edition-20160129.pdf, last accessed 16 March 2020. 59 Article 19(1). 60 Article 18. 61 Ethiopia acceded to the ACRWC on 2 October 2002. See the status list at the website of the African Union: https://au.int/en/treaties. 62 Proclamation 378/2003 - 2(5) & 24. RSCAS/GLOBALCIT-CR 2020/9 - © 2020 Author(s) 21