Report on Citizenship Law Zimbabwe Bronwen Manby 1. Introduction Zimbabwe shares the basic organisation of its citizenship law1 with other former territories of the British Empire. Although, like the other states of what is now the Commonwealth, Zimbabwe has significantly modified its law since it gained majority rule in 1980, the conceptual framework and its administrative application retains the outlines set during the period of British rule. This colonial history also established the principal controversies surrounding citizenship today. In particular, contestation of citizenship has centred on the status and right to vote of those with (actual or potential) dual citizenship, including the descendants of both the white settlers responsible for the expropriation of most of the best land, and of the black workers imported to enable that land to be exploited. In 2013, a new constitution was adopted after more than a decade of political conflict, at times violent, between the former liberation movement and ruling party, the Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), and an opposition party formed in 1999, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). The 2013 constitution establishes a mainly descent-based framework for citizenship, without discrimination on the basis of sex. The new constitution corrects the absence of a foundling provision that derived from Britain’s 1948 nationality law, and creates the presumption that a child found in Zimbabwe who appears to be less than 15 years old is Zimbabwean. The origin of the law in the British jus soli framework as of 1948 is now reflected only in a distinction between the rights of 1 The usage of the terms “nationality” and “citizenship” is complex. They are now synonyms in international law. During the colonial period in Africa, however, “nationality” was a status that recognised the connection to one or other European power, while “citizenship” was applied to those of European descent (and a few others) with higher levels of rights. In British law, the term “British nationality” is still used as an overarching term applied to a person with one of a range of different legal connections to the United Kingdom, including some residual categories dating from the imperial past that do not imply full rights in the UK. Until 1948, those with the highest level of rights in the UK (based on birth in the UK or in one of the “colonies”) were, however, known as “British subjects”; from 1948 they became “citizens of the UK and colonies”; and from 1981 “British citizens”. In this report, the terms are used according to the terminology applicable at the time and place. For further discussion, see Paul Weis, Nationality and Statelessness in International Law, 2nd ed. (Leiden: Brill, 1979), chap. 1; Laurie Fransman, Adrian Berry, and Alison Harvey, Fransman’s British Nationality Law, 3rd ed. (London: Bloomsbury Professional, 2011). RSCAS/GLOBALCIT-CR 2019/1 - © 2019 Author(s) 1