1 Application and interpretation of these terms in Myanmar is generally confusing and inconsistent. In Burmese language there is no uniform or commonly accepted definition of the meaning of “indigenous,” “indigenous races,” “national races,” and “ethnic groups” – either as cultural concepts or legal terms. The issue is important because of the link between these concepts and citizenship in Myanmar’s legal framework. Adding to this confusion is the existence of different translations to and from the English language, and the frequency of mistranslation between the two languages. In both languages, the terms are often conflated. In this report, in both Burmese and English, the ICJ has generally adopted the terms considered to best convey the intended conceptual meaning to readers, except where a term is used in reference to a specific legal provision. Note that section 3 of the 1948 Union Citizenship Act contains the term “any of the indigenous races of Burma” in English, and “ျမန္မာႏုုိင္းငံတုိင္းရင္းသားတစ္မ်ဳိးမ်ဳိး” in Burmese. The most recent guidance from the Union Attorney General’s Office (UAGO) of the Union of Myanmar differs from this, by advising to translate the term “indigenous” as “ဌာေနႏွင့္ဆုိင္ေသာ၊ တုိင္းရင္း” and to translate the term “indigenous races” as “တုိင္းရင္းသားလူမ်ဳိးမ်ား”. “The English-Myanmar Law Dictionary,” 4th Edition, 2017, pp. 168. The 2015 Law Safeguarding the Rights of National Races also defines the term tainyinthar lumyo mya, in section 2(a). For discussion of these issues, see for example: Mary P. Callahan, “Distorted, Dangerous Data? Lumyo in the 2014 Myanmar Population and Housing Census,” SOJOURN: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia, 32:2, 2017; Nick Cheeseman, “How in Myanmar “National Races” Came to Surpass Citizenship and Exclude Rohingya,” Journal of Contemporary Asia, 47:3, 2017, pp. 464 and 477 (endnote 1). 2 For instance, all the rights recognized and guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) apply to everyone, with the sole exception of the rights under article 21 (participation in public life, voting and election, access to serve in the public service), which the UDHR expressly guarantees only to citizens. 3 The 1947 Constitution (enacted in 1948) translated the term “taingyinthar” as “indigenous races,” and later the 1974 Constitution translated this term as “national races”. While translations between Burmese and English terms are contested, notably, none of Myanmar’s three constitutions (in 1947, 1974 then 2008) specified membership of these groups. A prescribed eight “national races” was first introduced in the 1948 Union Citizenship Act, section 3. The 1982 Citizenship Law, section 3 contains a very similar provision: “Nationals such as the Kachin, Kayah, Karen, Chin, Burman, Mon, Rakhine or Shan and ethnic groups as have settled in any of the territories included within the State as their permanent home from a period prior to 1185 B.E., 1823 A.D. are Burma Citizens.” While section 3 recognizes the residency in Myanmar of other “ethnic groups” (Burmese: မ်ဳိးႏြယ္စုမ်ား / myo nwe su mya), their recognition as “nationals” or not is left to the decision of the Government, under section 4. On indigeneity and citizenship in postcolonial states, see: Jose Maria Arraiza and Olivier Vonk, “Report on citizenship law: Myanmar,” European University Institute Country Report 2017/14, 2017, pp. 10-11. On the introduction of colonial concepts of “race” during British rule, see: pp. Niklas Foxeus, “The Buddha was a devoted nationalist: Buddhist nationalism, ressentiement, and defending Buddhism in Myanmar,” Religion, May 2019, pp. 13-14. For further discussion of Buddhist nationalism and the State in Myanmar, see: International Crisis Group, “Buddhism and State Power in Myanmar,” Asia Report No. 290, 5 September 2017, particularly pp. 7-8. 4 Republic of the Union of Myanmar, “The 2014 Myanmar Population and Housing Census: The Union Report,” Census Report Volume 2, pp. 207-210. The identity cards for which data was enumerated are: Citizenship Scrutiny Card; Associate Scrutiny Card; Naturalized Scrutiny Card; National Registration Card; Religious Card; Temporary Registration Card; Foreign Registration Card; and Foreign Passport. 5 Article 1 of the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons defines a “stateless person” as “a person who is not considered as a national by any State under the operation of its law.” Myanmar contributes to the largest population of stateless people in the world. See: Advisory Commission on Rakhine State, “Towards a peaceful, fair and prosperous future for the people of Rakhine: final report of the Advisory Commission on Rakhine State,” 2017, pp. 26. See also: UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), “Global trends: forced displacement in 2017,’ 2018, pp. 11, 24-25, 64-69. 6 See: ICJ, “Right to Counsel: the Independence of Lawyers in Myanmar,” 2013; ICJ, “Achieving Justice for Gross Human Rights Violations in Myanmar,” 2018. 17