To summarize briefly, recall that Article 17 of the 1961 Nationality Code allowed minor children born in Côte d’Ivoire to foreign nationals to acquire Ivorian nationality by declaration provided they had five years of consecutive residence in Côte d’Ivoire and their births were registered with the civil registration office pursuant to law. The founding Ivorian lawmakers did not envisage a time-limit on this procedure, but rather included this right to opt to acquire Ivorian nationality by declaration as a means of integrating minor children born in Côte d’Ivoire to foreigners. This right to opt for Ivorian nationality by declaration was abrogated by the 1972 amendments to the Nationality Code, which entered into effect on 25 January 1973. The 2013 law that revived the declaration procedure for a two-year time window made this option available again to the former beneficiaries of the declaration program that was foreseen in Article 17 of the Nationality Code, as well as for those who were eligible to apply for facilitated naturalization under Article 105 of the 1961 Nationality Code, which was available for a one-year period for foreigners with habitual residence in Côte d’Ivoire prior to independence. To summarize, the 2013 special declaration procedure was available to the following three categories of individuals: Category 1: Persons born in Côte d’Ivoire to foreign parents and aged less than 21 years of age on 20 December 1961; Category 2: Persons having had uninterrupted habitual residence in Côte d’Ivoire prior to independence on 7 August 1960; Category 3: Persons born in Côte d’Ivoire to foreign parents between 20 December 1961 and 25 January 1973. Regrettably, through modifications made in the implementing decrees and administrative regulations to Law No. 2013-653, there remained confusion – as a matter of law, as well as practice– as to the scope of the eligibility of the descendants of any or all of the three distinct categories of beneficiaries of this program. In practice, the failure of the original beneficiaries of Article 17 to acquire Ivorian nationality by declaration, as was their right until 25 January 1973, has deprived two, potentially more, successive generations of the original migrants’ children and descendants from also acquiring Ivorian nationality.85 As the discussion in Annex II highlights, there are many pitfalls in ad hoc law-making, which has been prevalent in Côte d’Ivoire since 2000. To reach the maximum number of beneficiaries and their legal descendants, the acquisition of nationality by declaration program should be extended indefinitely. That said, lawmakers should more carefully draft any subsequent laws and regulations to clarify the scope of the program and to ease the proof requirements of the program, as discussed further in Section 5.1.2 below. 3.2.4. Acquisition of nationality by decision of public authority: naturalization and reacquisition of Ivorian nationality Section 2 of Title III, Chapter 1 of the Ivorian Nationality Code establishes two modes of acquisition of Ivorian nationality by foreigners “by decision of public authority,” namely through naturalization or through a request to have Ivorian nationality reinstated (Article 24). 3.2.4.1. Naturalization 85 Given that Article 45 of the Nationality Code only allows minor children of adults who acquire Ivorian nationality by any of the various modes to also acquire Ivorian nationality in a subsidiary manner, the only avenue available to adult descendants of historical migrants to acquire Ivorian nationality would be through naturalization, provided they meet the criteria for naturalization required by law. 23