Report on Citizenship Law: Syria (C) Anyone born in the United Arab Republic to a mother holding the nationality of the republic and his paternal filiation has not been legally established. D): Anyone born in the United Arab Republic to two unknown parents, and considered as a foundling born in the republic unless proven otherwise. This provision is retroactive for births prior to the effectiveness of this law. This legislation, alongside its discrimination against women, would then create the main structure of law that would remain till this day. The following nationality laws did not differ substantively from the previous ones, and all these laws gave precedence to paternal filiation. For instance, the nationality law passed by the secessionist government, promulgated by the legislative decree No. 67 of 1961, adopted the same principle. Once the al-Baath party came to power – the party that is still in power today – and passed decree No. 276 of 1969,8 no substantial amendments were made. What we can see in the 1969 Legislative Decree, which is the current nationality regime, is that it grants a distinctive facilitated preference to Arabs who want to naturalise as Syrian, stemming from the pan-Arab ideology. Article 43 of the Syrian constitution, established in 1973 under Baath party ruling, then goes on to recognize that Syrian Arab citizenship is to be regulated by legislation.9 After that, a 1969 interior minister’s decision ensured the enacting regulations were issued in 1976. Between then and today, Syria has acceded to and ratified various international instruments that are related to stipulating their citizenship regime, and which are contravened by their domestic nationality law. This includes the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). They put reservations on certain articles, most notably Article 9 of CEDAW which provides for equality between men and women in nationality matters. Syria has not acceded to the 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons or the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, nor has it pledged to do so. Today, it is important to also note that there are some inconsistencies between the Syrian nationality law and other legal regimes in the country. Most notably, the Syrian constitution of 1973 grants full equality to women, where Article 25(3) in the 2012 amendment states that “Citizens are equal in rights and duties, without discrimination on grounds of sex, race, language, religion or creed” and Article 23 goes on to state that “The state guarantees women all opportunities enabling them to fully and effectively participate in the political, social, cultural, and economic life”. Despite this, gender inequality remains a severe problem on many levels of legislation as well as the nationality law. Alongside the nationality law, it should also be highlighted that the Syrian regime under the al-Baath party has subsequently passed several presidential and legislative decrees relating to citizenship which will be discussed in this report. These decrees would both deprive and grant Syrian nationality to various persons. The latest was for instance decree No. 49 of 2011, which allowed the granting Syrian nationality to those registered as foreigners in the Hassaka region in Northeast Syria – with the maktoumeen excluded. The decree was linked to the exceptional census of 1962, which was carried out in the Hassaka governorate and stripped thousands of Kurds of their Syrian citizenship.10 In addition, Syrian legislation does not allow for citizenship decisions to fall under the jurisdiction of the court. 8 Legislative Decree 276, access at https://www.refworld.org/pdfid/4d81e7b12.pdf. The 1973 Constitution of the Syrian Arab Republic was adopted in 1973 and was the Constitution until 2012. 10 More information on this in section 2.1.1. 9 RSCAS/GLOBALCIT-CR 2021/15 - © 2021 Author(s) 3