Peoples’ Right to a Nationality In recent years, ‘stateless communities’, ‘stateless people’ and ‘stateless nations’ have been increasingly mentioned. 89 In fact, the term ‘stateless nation’ was coined in 1983 by French political scientist Jacques Leruez in his book l’Ecosse, une nation sans etat, regarding the special status of Scotland in the United Kingdom. 90 Since then, the term has been taken to describe an ethnic group, people or nation that does not possess its own state and is not the majority population in any nation-state. Members of stateless nations may be citizens of a country or countries and may be denied citizenship by countries they live in. 91 The legal status given to most collectively refer to them simply as ‘stateless minorities’. 92 The literature on statelessness in Africa has varied from one region to another and has been marked by historical and political factors such as colonialism and state succession, historic migration, conflicts and forced displacement, elimination of political rivals, ethnic nationalism and regional integration. Between 1960 and the 1990s, most of the statelessness-related research on the continent was centred on nationality laws. Recently, some comprehensive research on nationality and citizenship laws was done by Bronwen Manby, who showed the colonial influences on the national laws of most African countries. 93 With regard to nationality rights, Manby has argued that the international regulation of nationality was historically organised for the benefit of states, rather than of people. 94 In general, African nationality laws are based on jus sanguinis and jus soli. 95 However, besides these two principles based on birth, two other factors influence the determination of nationality for adults: marriage to a citizen and long-term residence in a country. 96 There is a similar risk of statelessness concerning ethnic or religious and linguistic minorities who are considered ‘nonindigenous’ to a country and have historical or cultural ties elsewhere. 97 At the time of independence and the creation of new states in the continent, there were many residual ‘transplanted’ or historic migrant populations, who are now at risk of statelessness, because they were excluded from having the nationality of the new states. Prominent among them are the Asians, Arabs, Nubians and Somali in Kenya; the Lebanese in Sierra Leone; the Banyarwanda in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda; and the Karana of Madagascar; to name a few. 98 The problem with the current human rights-based research on nationality and statelessness is that it is mostly limited to the rights of individuals and persons. The human rights perspective to has been criticised by Hannah Arendt for its overreliance on the hegemonic nation-state international system, based on state rights. 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 See Minahan ‘Encyclopedia of Stateless Nations, Ethnic and National Groups around the World’ (n 39); Julius Friend, Stateless Nation: Western European Regional Nationalism and Old Nations (Palgrave 2012). Jacques Leruez, l’Ecosse, une nation sans etat (Presses universitaires de Lille 1983). Minahan, ‘Encyclopedia of Stateless Nations, Ethnic and National Groups around the World’ (n 39) xvii. See This Is Our Home Report (n 58). Bronwen Manby, Citizenship in Africa: The Law of Belonging (Hart Publishers 2018) 39–41. ibid 23. See, eg, Member State Expert Meeting on the Draft Protocol on the African Charter of Human and Peoples Rights on the Specific Aspects on the Right to a Nationality and the Eradication of Statelessness in Africa (Concept Note, African Union Commission, Department of Political Affairs 7–11 May 2018) 1. ibid. Katherine Southwick and M Lynch, Nationality Rights for All: A Progress Report and Global Survey on Statelessness (Report, Refugees International 2009) 28. See This Is Our Home Report (n 58). 49