2021 Statelessness & Citizenship Review 3(1) law.’ 57 With the rise of collective rights around the world, particularly in Africa, such a definition is outmoded for communities, groups and people. Within international organisations and the academia, there is a growing discourse on ‘group Statelessness’, ‘Stateless minorities’, and ‘Stateless nations’. In fact, several studies have shown that three quarters of stateless persons in the world belong to minority groups. 58 It is, however, important to know that the use of these concepts have been changing with time within the African human rights system. In the 1970s and 1980s, the use of peoples’ rights was fashionable because of the clamour for independence. In 2020, with virtually almost all African states having attained their independence from foreign colonial rule, the concept of peoples’ right to self-determination in human rights circles is decreasing, especially because its strong political connotation could become a source of secession of minority groups within most African countries. 59 The term ‘community’ is now frequently used in African legal and human rights institutions and current African case law as it is more neutral and credible than ‘people’. 60 The Constitution of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia is an African legal instrument that has long been able to make these concepts workable. Article 8 of the Constitution vests soverign powers on the Ethiopian nations, nationalities and people, while art 39 guarantees the right of self-determination to all Ethiopian nations, nationalities and people, including the right to secession. More importantly, the Ethiopian Constitution consecrates the right to nationality in art 33 and that of the nationality of children at birth in art 36(b). 61 Beyond these definitions of terms and concepts, collective rights as related to nationality are better understood through a number of legal and sociological theories. THE THEORETICAL FOUNDATION OF COLLECTIVE NATIONALITY RIGHTS Central to understanding the relationship between collective rights and the right to nationality have been theories such as the recognition theory, the communitarian theory and the Ubuntu theory. The theory of recognition has been used in explaining the mass deprivation of nationality rights of migrants, women, minority, and indigenous groups the world over. In essence, the theory holds that formal and informal forms of recognition are fundamental in individual and group identification, the sense of belonging and perception of the right to nationality. Charles Taylor argues that there is a direct correlation between recognition and nationality, because nationality is largely shaped by recognition and misrecognition by others, or even institutions and governments. 62 He notes that misrecognition has an adverse impact on an individual or community’s identity 57 58 59 60 61 62 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, opened for signature 28 July 1951, 189 UNTS 150 (entered into force 22 April 1954). See ‘This Is Our Home’: Stateless Minorities and Their Search for Citizenship (Report, UNHCR November 2017) 1 (‘This Is Our Home Report’). See Redie Bereketeab, Self-Determination and Secession: A 21st Century Challenge to the Post-Colonial State in Africa (Policy Notes No 5, The Nord Africa Institute 2012). For several years now, cases brought before the Commission have been addressed under the banner of communities rather than people. Also, the 2003 Report of the African Commission’s Working Group of Experts on Indigenous Populations/Communities also solidifies the use of the term ‘communities’: Report of the African Commission's Working Group of Experts on Indigenous Populations/Communities (Report, African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights 2005). See more at the Constitution of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. See Charles Taylor, ‘The Politics of Recognition’ in Amy Gutman (ed), Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics of Recognition (Princeton University Press 1994) 23, 37–42. 44