CITIZENSHIP AND STATELESSNESS IN THE MEMBER STATES OF THE SOUTHERN AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT COMMUNITY 2020 The history of nationality law in southern Africa Migration and nationality since the colonial era Africa shares challenges common to other post-imperial regions. The colonial powers established political borders that cut through the middle of communities that in the past had formed single social-political units. At the same time, they promoted — or forced — migration within the new zones of territorial control, moving unprecedented numbers of people away from their place of birth. The states that today make up the Southern African Development Community (SADC) were governed during the colonial era by four different European powers: Britain, France, Portugal and Belgium (five, if Germany is included, before its territories were redistributed after the first world war). These legal traditions continue to influence the nationality laws in place today.3 The largest number of states were formerly governed by Britain, although with a variety of different legal statuses: Botswana, Eswatini (formerly Swaziland), Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Namibia (previously South West Africa) and Tanzania (Tanganyika) had previously been German territories, allocated to Britain by League of Nations mandate following the First World War, becoming UN Trust Territories when the United Nations was established in 1945. Tanganyika gained independence during the same period as the other British territories; South West Africa, however, was under the control of South Africa until 1990, despite UN resolutions that its continued occupation was illegal.4 South Africa and Rhodesia (for a period known as Southern Rhodesia), were selfgoverning under their white minority regimes, with their own nationality laws, adopted in line with a scheme established by the 1948 British Nationality Act, long before democratic rule was established in 1994 and 1990, respectively. The British territories of Northern and Southern Rhodesia and Nyasaland (today’s Zambia, Zimbabwe and Malawi) were also linked together as the Central African Federation from 1953 to 1963 (also known as the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland); an entity that had its own citizenship law from 1957.5 Angola and Mozambique were Portuguese territories, ruled from Lisbon. The Democratic Republic of Congo was at first the private territory of the king of Belgium, and from 1908 an official colony of the Belgian state. The context of the island states was different, but still profoundly shaped by the colonial era. Madagascar was a French territory, as was the archipelago of Comoros (and one island of the archipelago, Mayotte, remains French). Mauritius and Seychelles were initially French territory, uninhabited at the time Europeans arrived, and later became British after the defeat of Napoleon in 1815. Systematically organised and coerced labour migration within Southern Africa, especially to South Africa and Rhodesia, had profound effects that continue to shape the regional economy. The white minority 10 3 This history is set out at greater length in Bronwen Manby, Citizenship in Africa: The Law of Belonging (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2018), chaps 2–3. 4 John Dugard, The South West Africa/Namibia Dispute: Documents and Scholarly Writings on the Controversy Between South Africa and the United Nations (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1973); Legal Consequences for States of the Continued Presence of South Africa in Namibia (South West Africa) notwithstanding Security Council Resolution 276 (1970): Advisory Opinion, 1971 ICJ Reports 16 (International Court of Justice 1971). 5 Colin Leys and Cranford Pratt, A New Deal in Central Africa (New York: Praeger, 1960); J. J. B. Somerville, “The Central African Federation”, International Affairs 39, no. 3 (1963): 386–402. UNHCR / December, 2020