children found of unknown parents.61 As such, Article 9 as implemented through the 1962 Circular created a rule that children of unknown parents found in Côte d’Ivoire constituted a third group of individuals to automatically acquire Ivorian nationality by origin. This provision of Article 9 was abrogated in 1972. No information is available on how many children might have benefitted from this provision when it was available. Even though the legislators sought to strike a balance and include elements of both jus solis and jus sanguinis, the fact of the matter is that birth alone on Ivorian soil had no legal effect on an individual’s nationality. As such, in practice the 1961 Nationality Code enshrined the primacy of jus sanguinis, or nationality by descent as its guiding principle.62 3.1.2. Who is a “foreigner?” A weakness of Article 6 was to provide a circular definition of Ivorians as those who are not “foreigners” without specifying who is considered to be a “foreigner.” This gap in the country’s nationality framework has allowed for various interpretations to come into play, whether through practice or through subsequent laws. Nevertheless, the concept of “autochthony” defining Ivorians as those born on Ivorian soil, as opposed to foreigners who originate from outside of Ivorian territories, was already engrained in the legislators’ conscience.63 They acknowledged the contributions of foreigners since preindependence times and “took into account the presence on our territory of these non-original elements who will have the possibility, under certain conditions, either to blend into our national melting pot, or to pursue their activities without having to renounce their nationalities of origin.”64 This presumed that all people in Côte d’Ivoire who were not born there had automatically acquired the nationality of their respective countries of origin.65 The legislative history therefore implies a predominant reading that only children of parents born in Côte d’Ivoire prior to independence merited the privileged status of Ivorian nationality by origin at independence. As for stateless persons, although the law is silent in their regard, the legislative history supports the view that they are to be considered as foreigners for the purposes of Article 6. During the legislative deliberations, the legal expert asserted that children born in Côte d’Ivoire to stateless parents are not entitled to Ivorian nationality by origin, unlike children born in Côte d’Ivoire to unknown parents, who are entitled to Ivorian nationality by origin.66 61 The Interministerial Circular addresses this, instructing Courts of First Instance to issue nationality certificates indicating a person is Ivorian by origin for three categories, including children found in Côte d’Ivoire to unknown parents. Circulaire Interministérielle No. 31/MJ/CAB 3 du 25 avril 1962 (1). 62 Even discussions in the National Assembly at the time acknowledged that Article 6, applying to anyone “born in Côte d’Ivoire, except if both of his or her parents are foreigners,” effectively is to be interpreted as: “is Ivorian, any individual born to one Ivorian parent and one foreign parent.” Commission des Affaires Générales et Institutionnelles – Procès-Verbal, de la séance de travail du vendredi 24 novembre 1961 – sous la présidence de Monsieur DJESSOU Loubo. Messieurs TIXIER et SAINT ALARI, professeurs de droit, étaient les invités de la Commission (on file with author) [hereinafter Commission des Affaires Générales et Institutionnelles]. 63 Babo, supra note 46. 64 Exposé des Motifs, 1961, supra note 56. 65 The founding Ivorian legislators assumed at independence that foreigners would be identified based on their birth outside Côte d’Ivoire as proven through birth registration: “It is difficult to distinguish an Ivorian from a Malian or from a Guinean, which is why nationality for us should be surrounded by many precautions. It is difficult to distinguish us one from another; it is only a birth certificate which can allow us to make this distinction.” Mr. Jerôme Alloh, quoted in Commission des Affaires Générales et Institutionnelles, supra note 62. 66 Commission des Affaires Générales et Institutionnelles, supra note 62. Some French legal commentators on Côte d’Ivoire’s Nationality Code have expressed the view that based on the language of the article alone, a 16