100. In the light of this prior clarification, the Commission believes that in many African States, any legal creation of nationality must essentially take its main source from a sociological and political understanding but also from the historical source of nationality. Considering the foundations recalled above, an alternative approach would constitute not only a denial of history but also an open door for dismantling new national entities, which people who were constrained by a wrongful demarcation of boundaries, have striven to build in several decades or even centuries. These would be a guarantee against inter-ethnic conflicts that have confronted a great majority of new African States. In this regard, the Commission believes that a more appropriate understanding of post-independence nationality in Africa is the one suggested by the International Court of Justice in the Nottebohm Case in the following terms : [Nationality is] a legal bond having at its basis a social fact of attachment, a genuine connection of existence, interests and sentiments, together with the existence of reciprocal rights and duties. It can be said that it is the legal expression of the fact that an individual on whom it is conferred, either directly or by law, or by an act of the authority, is in actual fact more closely attached to the population of the State which confers it on him/her than any other State.19 101. From the foregoing, the Commission is of the opinion that a determination of the Ivorian nationality must necessarily proceed from the consideration of the historical, legal and political elements which none of the Parties has called into question. From the related submissions, it appears that the historical foundations of Ivorian nationality are to be sought from the settlement of the people from the 13th century, from what later came to be referred to as the Côte d’Ivoire territory. In the 13th century, the Mandés came from territories in the north, currently occupied by Guinea, Mali, Burkina Faso, Liberia and Sierra Leone to settle in the North-West of Côte d’Ivoire. To date, the ethnocultural space of the Mandés geographically covers Côte d’Ivoire and each of the neighboring countries mentioned above. A second major wave of migratory movement was constituted by the Akans who came from the territory currently called Ghana in the 17th century to occupy the eastern and central regions of Côte d’Ivoire. The Akans are divided to date between Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana and Togo. As for the Krou and Voltaïque who occupy the West and the North-East of Côte d’Ivoire, today they can be found in the East of Liberia and in the South of Mali and Burkina Faso and in the North of Ghana and Togo.20 Nottebohm Case (Liechtenstein v. Guatemala) second phase) Order of 6 April 1955 ICJ Reports 23. See I Doumbia ‘Rapport d’expert sur la question de la nationalité en Côte d’Ivoire’ (2010) ; O Merabet ‘Etude sur le profile migratoire de la Côte d’Ivoire’ (2006) http://www.eeas.europa.eu/delegations/ cote_ivoire/documents/more_info/7_doc_fr.pdf (consulted on 14 October 2014) ; Diakadi République de 19 20 28