CITIZENSHIP AND STATELESSNESS IN THE HORN OF AFRICA \Y allies in the coalition against the previous governments, including over border Ethiopian demarcation, regime. However, led to war in 1998, tensions formally between ended the two by a peace agreement signed in December 2000.2°' It was only in July 2018, however, that a declaration was signed to define the border between the two states.76 At the outbreak of the war, there were still around half a million people of Eritrean origin living in Ethiopia, including approximately 200,000 living in the Tigray border region. were living in Eritrea. An estimated 100,000 Ethiopians In June 1998, approximately one month after the war began, Ethiopia issued a policy statement that the “550,000 Eritreans residing in Ethiopia’ could continue to live and work in the country, although politically active individuals were ordered to leave the country.26° Despite this reassurance, the very next day saw the first wave of arrests and expulsions of prominent individuals of Eritrean origin, and dismissals of those in government jobs. As the arrests and expulsions continued into 1999 and 2000, those affected were increasingly ordinary people with no particular status to attract the authorities’ attention. Ultimately, the Ethiopian authorities arrested, detained and deported some 75,000 people of Eritrean origin. Figures collated by the ICRC and UN ultimately indicated that around 70,000 people were expelled or repatriated from Eritrea to Ethiopia, just less than the mirroring figure, despite the Eritrean government continuing to deny it had any policy of expulsion.2® Individuals of Ethiopian descent still living in Eritrea who had not sought nationality by the time the war broke out in 1998 were considered aliens, dealt with according to the normal rules applicable to citizens of other countries living in Eritrea. In 2004, the Claims Commission established under the December 2000 peace agreement adjudicated on the nationality of the citizens of Ethiopia and Eritrea after the splitting of the two countries in 1993. Ethiopia had tried to justify the de-nationalizations and forced population transfers during the war by arguing that those Ethiopians who registered as Eritreans for the referendum in 1993 had thereby lost their nationality. there was existence at Eritrea argued that point. The that they could Claims not have Commission done found so because that, under the no “unusual Eritrea in transitional circumstances” around the creation of Eritrea, those who qualified to participate in the referendum in fact acquired dual nationality.265 The outbreak of the war did not of itself suspend this dual nationality, 261 The information in this section is largely derived from Manby, Citizenship in Africa, chap. 8.1; see also John Campbell, Nationalism, Law and Statelessness: Grand Illusions in the Horn of Africa, 2015; Daniel Mekonnen, ‘The Right to Cross-Border Identity of Individuals with Eritrean and Ethiopian Ancestry: International and Comparative Law Perspectives’, Ethiopian Yearbook of International Law, 2019, 49-79, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55912-0_4. 262 Joint Declaration of Peace and Friendship between Eritrea and Ethiopia, 9 July 2018 (published with commentary by Scott W. Lyons in International Legal Materials vol.58, no. 1 (2019): 237-39. doi:10.1017/ilm.2019.4). 263 Ethiopian Herald of 13 June 1998, cited in Human Rights Watch, ‘The Horn of Africa War: Mass Expulsions and the Nationality Issue (June 1998-April 2002)’. 264 Human Rights Watch, ‘The Horn of Africa War’. 265 Award of the Eritrea-Ethiopia Claims Commission in Partial Award (Civilian Claims: Eritrea’s Claims 15, 16, 23 & 27-32), 44 ILM 601 (2005) (award of 17 December 2004) at para.51, available at the website of the Permanent Court of Arbitration, which acted as registry for the process. “Taking into account the unusual transitional circumstances associated with the creation of the new State of Eritrea and both Parties’ conduct before and after the 1993 Referendum, the Commission concludes that those who qualified to participate in the Referendum in fact acquired dual nationality. They became citizens of the new State of Eritrea pursuant to Eritrea’s Proclamation No. 21/1/1992, but at the same time, Ethiopia continued to regard them as its own nationals.” 60 UNHCR — December 2021