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Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the Bachelor of Laws Degree, Strathmore University Law School Among the reasons why Africans are le.fi without a nationality is the colonial history of their respective states. Following the attainment of independence, these newly independent African states had to grapple with the formulation of citizenship laws that would apply to political units comprising of people from different cultures, religions and languages. In a bid to achieve this, governments had to decide whether to grant citizenship on the basis of the law of descent (jus sanguinis) or the law of the soil (jus soli). The general objective of this paper is to investigate the motivations that would lead a state to choose either mode of granting citizenship as well as its resultant effect on the creation of statelessness. it will additionally look into the nation-building processes of Kenya and Tanzania, which apply Jus sanguinis and jus soli respectively, as well as their citizenship policies before and after the attainment of independence. This examination hopes to eventually determine whether these policies, from the point of state succession, have lived up to the obligation to grant nationality to persons within their territories and prevent the occurrence of statelessness

We investigate the origin and evolution of the legal institution of citizenship from a political economy perspective. We compile a new data set on citizenship laws across countries of the world which documents how these institutions have evolved in the postwar period. We show that, despite a persistent impact of the original legislation, they have responded endogenously and systematically to a number of economic determinants, such as migration, the size of government, and the demographic structure of the population. Overall, a large stock of migrants decreases the probability of adoption of a mix of jus soli and jus sanguinis provisions, while it pushes jus sanguinis countries toward the adoption of jus soli elements. The welfare burden proves not to be an obstacle for a jus soli legislation, while demographic stagnation encourages the adoption of mixed and jus soli regimes. We also gauge the potential role of legal, political and cultural determinants, and find that a jus sanguinis origin is a factor of resistance to change, that a high degree of democracy promotes the adoption of jus soli elements while the instability of state borders associated with decolonization impedes it, and that cultural factors have no impact.

We investigate the origin, impact and evolution of citizenship laws. Citizenship laws originate from the common and civil law traditions, which apply jus soli and jus sanguinis, respectively. We compile a data set across countries of the world starting from the 19th century. The impact of the original, exogenously-given laws on international migration proves insignificant for the early, mass migration waves, which confirm to be driven primarily by economic incentives. Postwar convergence of citizenship laws is determined by legal tradition and international migration, but also by border stability, the establishment of democracy, the welfare burden, cultural factors and colonial history.

"We investigate the origin, impact and evolution of the legal institution of citizenship. We compile a dataset across countries of the world from the 19th century, which documents how citizenship laws have evolved from the common and civil law traditions. Contrary to the predictions of legal theory, we show that the original, exogenously-given citizenship laws did not matter for migration flows during the early, mass migrations period. After WWII, citizenship-granting institutions are no longer exogenous as they are shown to be determined by international migration flows, border stability, the establishment of democracy, the welfare burden, cultural factors, and colonial history." (author's abstract), "Es wird die Entstehung, die Bedeutung und die Entwicklung des Staatsbürgerschaftsrechtes untersucht. Es wird ein Datensatz von Ländern zur Zeit des 19. Jahrhunderts zusammengestellt, der dokumentiert, wie Staatsbürgerschaftsgesetze aus gewohnheits- und zivilrechtlichen Traditionen entstanden sind. Entgegen den Voraussagen der Rechtstheorie kommen wir zu dem Ergebnis, dass die ursprünglichen, exogen gegebenen Staatsbürgerschaftsgesetze keinen Einfluss auf die Migrationsströme der frühen Massenmigrationsperiode hatten. Seit dem zweiten Weltkrieg kann man die staatsbürgerschaftsrechtlichen Normen und Institutionen nicht mehr als gegeben betrachten. Vielmehr zeigt sich, dass sie durch internationale Migrationsbewegungen, die Stabilität von Grenzen, das Vorhandensein einer demokratischen Ordnung, die Belastung der Wohlfahrt, kulturelle Faktoren sowie die Kolonialgeschichte bestimmt werden." (Autorenreferat)