President Alassane Ouattara (center) looks at a stand of cocoa during the 2012 World Cocoa Conference in Abidjan. President Ouattara has said that resolving conflicts related to land tenure is a key priority for his government. © 2012 AFP Photo/Sia Kambou Reform to Land Tenure and Nationality Laws in 2013 In May 2013, President Ouattara committed to reevaluate and reinforce the 1998 law on rural land tenure, rightly linking both land and nationality issues to Côte d’Ivoire’s decent into politico-military violence.64 During a special legislative session, the National Assembly passed laws on both subjects on August 23. For rural land tenure, the National Assembly extended for another 10 years the period during which people can transform customary-based claims to land into private, state-backed land ownership.65 On the issue of nationality, the new law re-opens66 Ivorian citizenship to foreign-born 64 Zoumana Coulibaly and Raoul Sainfort, “Conférence de presse bilan du chef de l’etat : Alassane Ouattara : ‘Nous avons déployé des moyens importants pour sécuriser l’Ouest,’” Le Patriote, May 6, 2013, http://news.abidjan.net/h/458845.html (accessed August 29, 2013) ; and “Côte d’Ivoire: le foncier et la nationalité au cœur de la réforme du président Ouattara,” Radio France Internationale, May 6, 2013, http://www.rfi.fr/afrique/20130506-cote-ivoire-foncier-nationalite-deux-axesreforme-president-ouattara (August 29, 2013). 65 Ange Aboa, “Ivory Coast lawmakers pass critical land, nationality laws,” Reuters, August 23, 2013. 66 At various times in Côte d’Ivoire’s history—including between 1961 and 1973, and from 2005-2006—the ability to obtain citizenship was open to the same groups of people subject to the 2013 laws. This was a key point of the 2003 Linas- “THAT LAND IS MY FAMILY’S WEALTH” 26