Manby, B. (2011). International Law and the Right to a Nationality in Sudan. Africa Governance Monitoring Advocacy Project (AfriMAP) & Open Society Justice Initiative.
Summary
Among the many critically important choices that Sudan is facing in the context of the referendums on the status of South Sudan and Abyei are the criteria that will be established to determine citizenship of the new entities. This paper argues strongly that the negotiating parties should reject ethnicity as the basis for determining membership of the new polities and instead adopt the non-discriminatory norms established by international human rights law, providing for citizenship to be granted on the basis of any appropriate connection to the territory, respecting the rights of individuals to opt for the nationality they prefer, and with the default option based on habitual residence.