Code of 1961. By way of major amendments, the said laws respectively
introduced the acquisition of nationality for foreigners who marry Ivorians
and the introduction of a special temporary nationalization procedure for
persons who could not apply for nationality between 1961, the year the Code
was adopted, and 1972, when the provisions authorizing the acquisition
through a simple declaration were repealed. The ineffectiveness of these
reforms, unanimously recognized by the Parties, led to the implementation of
the programme for the identification of Ivorians and foreigners living in Côte
d’Ivoire under the aegis of the Ouagadougou Peace Accords concluded in
2007 between the Government of the time and the armed rebellion, following
the 2002 failed coup d’état. The Parties also agree that the mobile court
hearings following the said accords and the distribution of supplementary
judgments have not resolved the issues of nationality and statelessness,
particularly concerning the Dioulas. The subsequent reforms are those which
were undertaken in 2013 by the administration of President Alassane
Ouattara and which the Commission will concentrate on in order to consider
compliance with the standards mentioned above.
124. It is relevant to concentrate on the 2013 reforms because they are the most
recent, on the one hand, and because they, according to the allegations of the
Respondent State, resolve the issues which previous reforms have not been
able to resolve, on the other hand. Before considering this claim, the
Commission reiterates that in this case in point, a distinction must be made
between at least two sets of victims: the Dioulas and others. As a reminder,
the Dioulas are one of the ethnic groups which formed the original
population of Côte d’Ivoire through successive waves of immigration and
uninterrupted residence from the 13th Century up to the date of the legal birth
of Côte d’Ivoire. As the Commission has concluded above, the historical and
legal claim of the Dioulas is consubstantial with the birth of Côte d’Ivoire and
the first and original Ivorian nationality. Besides, and consequently, any
applicant for Ivorian nationality who has blood relations with these Dioulas
of the first generation migrants logically inherits a similar claim.
125. However, the Commission considers that there is another category of
Dioulas. These are Dioulas who have emigrated to Côte d’Ivoire for the first
time after independence and who, on account of this fact, cannot claim legal
Ivorian nationality established before their first contact with the independent
State of Côte d’Ivoire. These second generation migrants are particularly
made up of persons with about the same ethnic origins and culture as the first
Dioulas and whose arrival in Côte d’Ivoire was particularly spurred on by the
‘pro-immigration’ policies of President Houphouët-Boigny. Generally, they
emigrated between 1960 and 1993, the year marking not only the demise of
the first president of Côte d’Ivoire, but also the end of ‘amended’ enforcement
37