ChChapter 2: Origins and influences of nationality law 2.2 MENA countries’ original body of nationals In terms of understanding the way in which nationality laws operate and affect people’s lives today, the main focus of analysis is the set of conditions under which nationality is conferred at birth, can be acquired in later life by a non-national and can be renounced of withdrawn. An exploration of these rules provides an insight into how people can become or cease to be a member of one of the world’s current nationstates. However, an important step precedes this, in that each of these nation-states had to first come into existence at some point in the past and to claim, at that moment, an ‘original’ body of nationals. Thus, for example, when the modern state of Lebanon emerged, who were the first Lebanese nationals? After all, for a state to exist, a permanent population is needed and this must be delineated in much the same way as that the territorial boundaries of the state must also be established. Who belongs to the original body of nationals is a question that is therefore answered by each states’ first rules on nationality. In the nationality laws of MENA states, these rules can often still be found (often in the opening provisions), Inclusion, The Worlds Stateless, 2014, access at http://www.institutesi.org/ worldsstateless.pdf 55