The Production and Maintenance of Protracted Statelessness: An Analysis of the Language and Practice of the Nationality Law in Thailand and Brunei Darussalam

In theory, nationality law that stipulates criteria and requirements for the granting of citizenship should address racial or ethnic division and the distinction between immigrant and indigene status. Instead, modern citizenship contradicts this, and conversely becomes an apparatus for state procedures of exclusion. In this article, I have focused on and assessed the language of seclusion and the practice of division found in the nationality law of Thailand and Brunei. I argue that the phenomenon of protracted statelessness is not happening incidentally, but rather deliberately produced through the language and practice of nationality law. The study concludes by highlighting two main factors that contribute to the increasing number of protracted stateless persons: first, the explicit and implicit language of exclusion in the law that becomes institutionalized practice; second, the opaqueness of the language used can facilitate practices that are not aligned with the law. This study sheds light on the nature of language and practice found in nationality law – a factor that has attracted little attention from relevant scholars, yet it is inherent in the production and maintenance of protracted statelessness in Thailand and Brunei Darussalam. Keywords: Brunei Darussalam, Language and practice, Nationality law, protracted statelessness, Thailand

THE RIGHT TO ACQUIRE THE MOTHER'S NATIONALITY

Acquiring the mother's nationality is a human right in general and the rights of the mother and child in particular stipulated in international conventions and the Iraqi constitution in force for the year 2005, in addition, the Iraqi Nationality Law stipulates the mother’s right to transmit nationality to her children, but according to conditions previously set by the Iraqi legislature, because it helps to reduce the issue of statelessness, is considered one of the important and contemporary jurisprudence topics, which stirred controversy among legal jurists between supporters and opponents, especially Islamic law jurists because the child is attributed to his father, and the state legislations differed in it, as well as in the legal implications of acquiring the mother’s nationality, including dual nationality, applicable law, inheritance issues and other Private international law matters. Therefore, the research dealt with the topic according to the comparative approach in two topics, the first study on the child's right to the nationality of his mother and was divided into two demands, the first requirement is what is the mother’s nationality, and the second requirement is about equality in the right to acquire a nationality, while the second topic examined the foundations of acquiring the mother’s nationality In the Iraqi Nationality Law, it was divided into two topics: The first requirement is the cases of acquiring the mother’s nationality in the Iraqi Nationality Law. The second requirement relates to how to acquire the mother’s nationality and its implications. Through the foregoing, where a number of results and proposals have been reached, we found that the transmit of nationality from the mother to the child born in the territory of a state would be beneficial in the event that the father's nationality had been rejected for political reasons, the issue of granting nationality by the mother to her children helped in the transfer of inheritance from the mother to the children and the acquisition of ownership, especially real estate, which states require the foreigner to have multiple conditions for approval of ownership, where countries have to unify their legislation regarding the mother's right to grant citizenship to her children based on the right of blood to limit the problems of international law, such as the issue of determining the applicable law, Actual nationality and other matters‎‎. Keywords: Mother's Nationality, Human Rights, Gender Equality, Acquisition of Nationality, Discrimination Against Women, International Conventions

Colonial Legacies in Syrian Nationality Law and the Risk of Statelessness

The millions of Syrians born or living in exile as a result of the ongoing conflict has dramatically increased the number of people from Syria with no nationality. In this regard, Syrian nationality law has been criticised for containing discriminatory provisions and failing to address the risk of statelessness. Nonetheless, the responsibility of colonialism in creating such discrimination has been largely overlooked. One decade after the outbreak of the Syrian civil war, this article looks back at the colonial roots of Syrian legislation governing nationality. Through a critical legal and historical analysis, it reveals the hidden colonial legacies of Syrian citizenship, by highlighting the responsibility of European colonial powers in introducing gender-based discrimination in domestic legislation, rendering Kurds and Palestinians stateless, and creating the practice of arbitrary denationalisation. This paper ends with a call for more research on colonial legacies within citizenship and statelessness studies.

The ‘Person of Northern Ireland’: A Vestigial Form of EU Citizenship?

Northern Ireland – United Kingdom – Republic of Ireland – Divergent development of Irish and British nationality law – Citizenship of the European Union – Good Friday Agreement – Brexit – Emma DeSouza – Family unity as a source of constitutional conflict – Reverse discrimination – Cross-border equality as a means of representation reinforcement – Richard Plender

3. Nationality, citizenship, and right of abode

This chapter considers the bases of nationality and citizenship, and traces the development of British nationality law, focusing on changes from 1948 to the present day. It looks at the effects of these changes on particular groups of people, characterised to a significant extent by progressive exclusion. It considers the fundamental incident of citizenship and the right to live in one’s own country, both as to the interaction of nationality and immigration law and as to the overall effect of full inclusion as a citizen. The bases for obtaining British nationality by registration and naturalisation are discussed, as are the powers of deprivation of citizenship. The possibility of asserting rights as a stateless person is also noted.

Part 2 National and Regional Reports, Part 2.4 Europe: Coordinated by Thomas Kadner Graziano, 49 Turkey: Turkish Perspectives on the Hague Principles

This chapter explores Turkish perspectives on the Hague Principles. The content of Turkish Private International Law is highly comprehensive. In addition to choice of law and international procedural law, it also covers nationality law, as well as the law on foreign nationals. Private international law rules and issues regarding international procedural law are codified in Law No 5718 on Private International Law and Procedural Law (PILA), which has been in force since 2007. Besides the PILA, the Turkish Commercial Code contains conflict of laws rules regarding bills of exchange, checks, and promissory notes. According to Article 1(2) PILA, the application of international treaties ratified by Turkey takes priority over the application of PIL rules. Consequently, in each case, the court, before taking into account PILA’s Articles, has to determine whether any international treaty exists regarding international commercial contracts. If an international treaty exists, then it takes priority unless otherwise expressed in the treaty itself. For the time being, the Turkish Parliament has no intention to revise the PILA and supplement it with the Hague Principles.

Nation and Migration in Late-Ottoman Spheres of (Legal) Belonging: A Comparative Look at Laws on Nationality

The last century of the Ottoman state’s existence witnessed the transformation of the term “Ottoman” from an elite, class-based, and exclusive designation to one including and identifying all whose allegiances were tied to the state. Despite this semantic shift, the verdict is still out on the question of late-Ottoman inclusivity. Indeed, exclusivist is a term more frequently coupled with policy and law. Though the former can be considered exclusivist in many instances from the late 19th century through the dissolution of the empire, the designation does not fit the legal framework and terminology that articulated belonging. To recognize this, it is imperative to approach the 1869 Ottoman Nationality Law from a comparative perspective, especially, though not strictly, with reference to Great Power laws, since these legalities are the yardstick by which Ottoman rational modernity has been measured. This article considers access to actual and potential membership in various nationality laws in relation to their Ottoman counterpart and concludes that the exclusivist designation is questionable. Instead, Ottoman law does not present an anomaly and was in many instances both more expansive and more inclusive than others—even if it has been subjected to a different vocabulary than contemporaneous laws with similar stipulations.

The “Latin” Melting Pot

This article explores how, through discussions about immigrant assimilation in fin de siècle Algeria, French republicans contemplated and wrote into law the ethnic traits of French national identity. Republicans assumed that the North Mediterranean immigrants who settled in Algeria shared ethnic origins with French settlers and consequently asserted that France should work to “fuse” the two groups. Assertions about immigrants' ethnicity took different forms. In the colony they appeared either at the margins of colonial administrators' attacks against immigrant communal organization or in literary representations of French-Mediterranean fusion. In the metropole republican legislators portrayed immigrants as innately prone to becoming French and thus supported the 1889 nationality law that naturalized them. The passing of the 1889 law prompted the creation of an explicitly ethnorepublican assimilatory model. The model's proponents combined sociological and eugenicist principles to both socialize immigrants into the nation and promote the transfer of their Mediterranean “vigor” into French bodies. Cet article examine les efforts des intellectuels et des dirigeants républicains pour assimiler les immigrés européens en Algérie à la fin du dix-neuvième siècle. Il affirme que les identités communautaires et la prépondérance démographique des immigrés ont poussé l'élite républicaine à envisager leur capacité ethnique à s'assimiler à la société française, et montre que l'idée que les Français et les immigrés avaient la même origine ethnique a façonné les débats sur l'assimilation nationale et a influencé la formation des lois républicaines fondamentales. En Algérie, des affirmations à propos de l'identité ethnique des immigrés européens apparaissaient en marge des discussions politiques sur leur organisation communautaire et dans les romans des écrivains algérianistes. En métropole, des législateurs républicains supposaient que la « ressemblance ethnique » entre Français et immigrés assurait l'assimilation rapide de ces derniers et ils ont soutenu la loi de 1889 sur la nationalité qui les a naturalisés. A l'issue de la législation de 1889, une vision de fusionnement des colons français et des membres de la « race méditerranéenne » en Algérie s'est développée. Ses partisans ont combiné des principes sociologiques avec des principes eugéniques dans le but d'incorporer les immigrés européens dans la nation et de faire transporter leur « vigueur » dans les corps des Français.