Comparative regional report on citizenship law: Anglophone Caribbean Interestingly, while the majority of Anglophone Caribbean countries have not ratified the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, several have provisions in place for stateless persons, or individuals with unclear citizenship status, to acquire citizenship.50 For instance, in Barbados, a person must have always been stateless and be born to a citizen parent to fall under the country’s citizenship acquisition procedure, while in St. Lucia the stateless person must be a minor. Both Grenada and Guyana provide two distinct paths to citizenship acquisition for stateless persons. In Grenada, a stateless person who is not married to a citizen must go through a discretionary naturalisation procedure, whereas a stateless person who is married to a Grenadian citizen is entitled to register for citizenship. In Guyana, a stateless person born to a citizen mother after the Citizenship Act became law automatically becomes a citizen by birth if “his mother was a citizen of Guyana at the time when he was born” and the child would otherwise be stateless. For stateless persons who do not fall under this provision, and who were born before the commencement of the Act and who have always been stateless, they are entitled to register for citizenship as long as their mother was an UK & Colonies citizen (pre-Independence provision). Commonwealth citizens Another class of individuals who receive special consideration in registration procedures are Commonwealth citizens. 51 With the exception of Belize, 52 all Anglophone Caribbean countries provide for citizenship acquisition via registration for Commonwealth citizens.53 Furthermore, a few Anglophone Caribbean countries have different registration provisions for individuals from Commonwealth countries depending on whether or not they were resident at the time of Independence. In these cases, those who were resident at the time of Independence are typically entitled to register for citizenship, while post-Independence Commonwealth residents must go through a discretionary registration process. 51 The Commonwealth is made up of 54 former colonies of the former British Empire. Neither Belize’s Constitution nor Nationality Act contains provisions related to Commonwealth citizens’ citizenship acquisition, although their right to vote is addressed in the Constitution. 53 Note that in the citizenship acquisition Schedules for the majority of these countries, some Commonwealth countries may not be explicitly mentioned because at the time of the Anglophone Caribbean country’s independence from the UK, a particular Commonwealth country was not yet independent. For instance, the Schedules of many of these countries do not explicitly identify Namibia because it secured its Independence at a later time. Also note that Trinidad and Tobago’s Citizenship Act states that “registration” is a discretionary procedure in Article 7, but its schedule of fees to this Act uses the term “naturalisation.” 52 16 RSCAS/GLOBALCIT-Comp. 2020/3 - © 2020 Authors