115. From the cross examination of these different prescriptions, a key
obligation emerges : the obligation of the State on whose territory a person
claims to have been born to grant him nationality, unless the said State
cannot prove that the person in question has already acquired or is eligible to
another nationality.33 The totality of all the historical and legal prerequisites
established above is of key relevance to the interpretation and
implementation of the right guaranteed by Article 5 of the Charter. That is the
case because one of the ultimate purposes of the historical approach to the
determination of nationality in Africa is to resolve, once and for all, the
dramatic equation of imposing arbitrary borders on new sovereign African
States at independence.
116. In this case, the Commission notes that in its letter, the Ivorian nationality
Code does not take its source from ethnic and cultural diversity and from the
historical dynamics of the creation of the population that constituted the new
State of Côte d’Ivoire at independence. In fact, though one cannot begrudge
the said legislation for opting for nationality by blood, the Ivorian parent
from whom one inherits the original nationality should have been clearly
defined, particularly during the time when one belonged to a list of groups of
people that inhabited the colonial territory which became « Côte d’Ivoire » at
independence. It has nothing to do with the Ivorian Code. However, more
surprisingly, whereas the status of « national » is undefined, the law tends to
define nationals by contrasting it with foreigners. In short, the rule to
determine one or the other of these two statuses consists of considering that
an Ivorian is someone who is not a foreigner and vice versa. Consequently,
the status of the foreigner is also not defined.
117. From the point of view of the date constituting the reference deadline, the
Code also does not mention independence. It is true that under the terms of
the provisions of Article 8 (1) of the said Code, one is deemed to have been an
Ivorian at birth even if the conditions to acquire nationality are subsequent to
birth. However, the provisions of Article 8 (1) go back to the quality of the
Ivorian as defined by the provisions of the Code of which the Commission
has already concluded about its lack of precision and non conformity with the
prescribed criteria under the relevant international law.
118. Furthermore, and with reference to the relevant law on the territory
corresponding to the pre-independence Côte d’Ivoire, the only nationality
given was the French nationality, in any case at least from the creation of the
colony of Côte d’Ivoire, on 10 March 1893. The Parties do not dispute the fact
United Nations Convention on the Status of Stateless Persons, 28 September 1954
http://www.unhcr.org/3bbb25729.html ; United Nations Convention on the Reduction of Cases of
Statelessness, 30 August 1961 http://www.unhcr.org/3bbb286d8.html.
33
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