Abdullah Athayi citizenship. In order to renounce the citizenship of Afghanistan, a person must meet certain requirements and submit an official letter of renunciation. The relationship between the individual and the state is important for national and international security. The 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center led the Afghan government to review the status of its citizens and those who acquire Afghan citizenship, together with the modes and rules of acquisition. The government needs to strictly implement the law which allows it to remove the citizenship of those who join insurgencies, fight the government or destroy public infrastructure. This report will analyse the acquisition and loss of citizenship and discuss dual nationality under Afghan law. The first part of the report explores the historical setting in which citizenship was established. It will relate the development of the citizenship law in parallel with changing political regimes in Afghanistan in three main phases of legislation. The second part discusses the current citizenship regime, and covers the acquisition of citizenship, loss of citizenship and dual nationality. It will set out the requirements under the law for the acquisition of citizenship by descent, birth and naturalisation, and those for people to renounce or be deprived of citizenship. Following this, the report explores the evolving dual nationality policy in Afghanistan, together with the rules and regulations regarding the dual nationality of presidential candidates, parliamentary representatives and appointees, and ministerial candidates. It is important to note that access to information is difficult in Afghanistan. Data regarding citizenship are either very old or not easily accessible. There are no systematic updated statistics showing the numbers of citizens who acquire or renounce Afghan citizenship. In addition, there are very few articles, essays or analyses on the topic of Afghan citizenship law in English. 2. Historical Background The development of the citizenship rules in Afghanistan needs to be analysed in three major legislation phases.1 These are as follows: - the Nizamnama phase (1920-1929); - the Osolnama phase (1932-1964); - the Qanoonnama phase (1964-2016). 1 In the history of Afghan legislation, various names and titles have been used as the legal regimes changed over the last hundred years. The legislation evolved in three main phases. The first period was called the Nizamnama phase, which refers to Amir Amanullah Khan, the first progressive king of Afghanistan in the period 1920-1929. All the laws, including the constitution, in this period contained the title Nizamnama in the subject heading. The second phase, which began under the rule of Nader Khan, is called Osolnama and covers the years 1932-1964. In this period, all the laws, including the constitution, had the title Osolnama in the subject heading. Finally, the third phase began with the first democratic constitution in 1964 and continues until now. This period is called Qanoonnama and changed the headings of the previous laws to Qanoon, which can easily be translated as ‘law’ (Ministry of Justice, collection of Afghanistan laws, 2006, available at www.moj.gov.af). 2 RSCAS/GLOBALCIT-CR 2017/9 - © 2017 Author