Regional Report on Citizenship: The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) privilege is often reserved for individuals who have or can offer exceptional services to the country. Another example is article 6 of the Yemen Nationality Law, which allows for a reduction of the qualifying period of residence (from 10 years to 5) if there is an “urgent reason” for obtaining nationality. Acquisition by marriage: The second type of naturalisation in the laws of the MENA states concerns the rules relating to obtaining nationality through marriage. In most countries in the region, women can acquire nationality when they marry a national man, the women may, but do not have to, choose. The specifics of this process and what additional criteria are in place vary. For example, in Iran nationality will be immediately acquired at the time of marriage, while in Oman it is only after 10 years of marriage and only if the couple have a son. When it comes to national women who have married foreign men, however, the situation is far more complicated. In Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, United Arab, Emirates and Yemen, married woman cannot transfer their nationality to foreign spouses on an equal basis with married man. In most cases the residency requirement for the foreign man is much longer, and there are often additional requirements too – such as earning a good income. Procedural questions In all countries in the MENA region, even if all criteria are fulfilled, naturalisation often remains a discretionary procedure, which is a common feature of naturalisation processes worldwide. The discretionary nature of naturalisation decisions has, however, severe consequences for many communities across the MENA region that have been stateless for generations and have been unable to access the naturalisation procedures.59 In many of the counties, the nationality law stipulates that the authority that is competent in nationality cases – in most states this is the Ministry of Interior – has absolute authority. There has been one example where discretionary powers have been curbed significantly in terms of granting nationality. The situation in Qatar used to allow the Emir to grant anyone nationality without giving any reasons. However, in 2005, there was an amendment of the law which stipulated that there must be eligibility guidelines for naturalisation and these were specified by this amendment. This made it clearer which criteria someone would need meet in order to be granted nationality. Aside from ‘exceptional nationality’ which is at times granted by the Emir, an individual has to fulfil these criteria and cannot just be granted nationality arbitrarily. On the other hand, there is also discretion in the rejection of nationality for those who do fulfil the criteria – a practice which is much more common. An example of this is Saudi Arabia, where the Minister of Interior has complete discretion in the granting of nationality and the law states that he ‘in all cases may refuse granting Saudi Arabian nationality to aliens who have fulfilled conditions.’60 There are no further guidelines as to what motivation or reasoning a rejection must follow. This is similar in most countries, where there is no legal prescription of why and when a rejection may be made. Elsewhere the law does not stipulate discretion explicitly, so this is something borne out by practise. However, terms that are commonly used 59 60 For example the Bidoon of the Gulf and the Armenians of Egypt, who are inter-generationally stateless. Decision no. 4 of 25/1/1374 of Saudi Arabia, Article 10. RSCAS/GLOBALCIT-Comp. 2017/3- © 2017 Author(s) 15