and applied by all other countries of the world. In other countries, naturalisation provides avenues to citizenship for people with strong ties to a country, such as through marriage or residence. There are no provisions within the 1982 Citizenship Law to acquire nationality through marriage or through long-term residence after 1982. Instead, ‘naturalised’ citizenship in Myanmar is applied to persons who can prove multiple generations of ties to Myanmar since before independence. Over three generations, ‘associate’ and ‘naturalised’ citizens should, in principle, be able to acquire ‘full citizenship’ in Myanmar. However, this is rarely the case in practice. This is considered to be an excessively long period over which the descendants of naturalised citizens will ultimately acquire full citizenship rights. To ensure equality and non-discrimination, provisions should be included in the law to allow people to acquire Myanmar nationality through criteria such birth, marriage and permanent residence, as is the case in most other countries of the world. provisions of the 1982 Law. Further, members of various minority communities cannot establish their claim due to their previous citizenship and residence documents being displacement. MYANMAR’S CITIZENSHIP FRAMEWORK UNDER THE 1947 CONSTITUTION AND THE 1948 UNION CITIZENSHIP ACT: A SUITABLE FRAMEWORK FOR A FEDERAL DEMOCRACY? The forthcoming research report, ‘Navigating without a map: Access to Citizenship Documents in Myanmar’ provides a detailed comparison of the 1947/48 framework and the 1982 Citizenship Law. This section pro- 4) The Revocation of Citizenship The 1982 Citizenship Law gives overly broad powers to the State to revoke citizenship from those with ‘associate’ and ‘naturalised’ citizenship (Section 8b). The law lists wide-ranging circumstances in which citizenship can be revoked including communicating with a member of an organisation hostile to the state and serving more than one year in prison for an act of ‘moral turpitude’ (section 35). Under the law, no consideration is given as to whether revocation of citizenship will lead to statelessness. Further, since dual nationality is not permitted (section 13), there is an increased likelihood that the revocation of citizenship will result in statelessness. These rules are discriminatory and arbitrary and contravene basic principles of international law. Arbitrary Deprivation of Nationality The 1982 Citizenship Law provided for Myanmar citizens to maintain their citizenship (under the previous citizenship framework) when the new law came into force. As part of a nation-wide scrutiny exercise from 1989 onwards a new colour-coded ID system was introduced. Prior to this time, much of the population held Nationfunctioned as evidence of Myanmar citizenship. Many people who held NRCs were not provided with evidence of their citizenship under the new ID card system. As a result, they were excluded from citizenship in an arbitrary and discriminatory manner which went against the 5 4 The 1948 citizenship framework was similar to that of many other countries in the same period, in particular, countries which had recently obtained independence after colonisation. It was based on a mixed system of descent and birth on the territory. It was largely inclusive in its attempt to strike a balance between the place of indigenous groups in the country and the right to automatic the country. As such, it enabled individuals with strong links to the country to acquire and preserve their citizenship whilst still addressing the imbalances and injustices of the colonial era. The criteria for membership of ‘national ethnic groups’ was less rigid and more open-ended allowing for a broader more inclusive interpretation of citizenship. The framework also had a naturalisation proriage to a citizen or long-term residence. Since 1948, international human rights standards have grown stronger. Migration and holding dual or multiple citizenship has become more common. Citizenship based predominantly on ethnicity and race-based criteria has often led to discrimination. We have seen examples of fairer citizenship laws, as well as fairer ways to legally redress the negative consequences of discriminatory laws. For example, the post-independence nationality laws of Malaysia and Sri Lanka, excluded communities of Indian origin – resulting in their statelessness. Law reforms in both countries have largely addressed these issues. For more information, see the Principles on Deprivation of Nationality as a National Security Measure, available at: https://files.institutesi.org/PRINCIPLES.pdf