COLONIAL LEGACIES IN SYRIAN NATIONALITY
LAW AND THE RISK OF STATELESSNESS
MALAK BENSLAMA-DABDOUB *
The millions of Syrians born or living in exile as a result of the ongoing conflict has dramatically
increased the number of people from Syria with no nationality. In this regard, Syrian nationality
law has been criticised for containing discriminatory provisions and failing to address the risk of
statelessness. Nonetheless, the responsibility of colonialism in creating such discrimination has
been largely overlooked. One decade after the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War, this article looks
back at the colonial roots of Syrian legislation governing nationality. Through a critical legal and
historical analysis, it reveals the hidden colonial legacies of Syrian citizenship, by highlighting the
responsibility of European colonial powers in introducing gender-based discrimination in
domestic legislation, rendering Kurds and Palestinians stateless, and creating the practice of
arbitrary denationalisation. This paper ends with a call for more research on colonial legacies
within citizenship and statelessness studies.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction............................................................................................................... 6
Historical Context: European Colonialism and the Formation of Syria as a
Modern State ........................................................................................................... 11
A The Dislocation of the Ottoman Empire and Creation of Artificial
Nationalities................................................................................................ 11
B Syrian Citizenship Post-Independence and the Influence of
Pan-Arabism ............................................................................................... 15
Gender-Based Rules in Syrian Nationality law ...................................................... 19
A The Introduction of Gender-Based Discrimination by the French
Colonial Administration ............................................................................. 19
B The Impact of Gender-Based Discrimination on Statelessness .................. 21
The Deprivation of the Right to Self-Determination for the Kurds and
Palestinians ............................................................................................................. 23
A British Support for Zionism and the Creation of Statelessness among
Palestinians ................................................................................................. 23
B The Legal Status of Palestinians in Syrian Nationality Law ...................... 24
C Kurdish Syrians: When Ethnic Identities Meet Stateless Identities ........... 26
Arbitrary Denationalisation in Syrian Legislation .................................................. 29
Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 31
INTRODUCTION
The issue of citizenship and statelessness in Syria has been brought to the
foreground by the forced displacement of nearly 13 million people since the
*
PhD Candidate at Queen Mary University of London. I am grateful to my supervisors Violeta
Moreno-Lax, Nicola Piper and Shazia Choudhry for their advice and comments on earlier
versions of this article. Special thanks are also due to the three anonymous peer reviewers
who provided thorough feedback. My deepest gratitude goes to Bassil Dabdoub for his
continuous support and encouragement. This article could not have been completed without
him.