Nationality and Cases of Statelessness in the Middle East and North Africa of the blueprints on which contemporary MENA states’ nationality laws were later modelled, but also had a direct influence on who went on to enjoy the nationality of many of the countries to emerge following the Ottoman dissolution. Thus, previous enjoyment of Ottoman nationality was highly relevant to the question of inclusion in the original body of nationals of countries from Saudi Arabia, to Iraq, to Egypt.49 The second major influence on contemporary nationality laws in the MENA was that of the foreign legal systems that encroached parts of the region through a mix of colonial, protectorate and mandate rule. There were two main players in this: France and Britain. Algeria, Mauritania, Morocco and Mauritania, for example, all spent a period under French colonial rule and there the influence of the French legal system on the nationality codes of these states following their independence was significant. The French Mandate for Syria and Lebanon, established under the auspices of the League of Nations following the end of World War I, led to the introduction of the French legal model in this part of the MENA as well. Indeed, following France’s proclamation of the Lebanese state, it was the French High Commissioner 49 - G. Parolin, Citizenship in the Arab World. Kin, Religion and Nation State, Amsterdam University Press, 2009, from page 71. 46