Nationality and Statelessness During Armed Conflict

July 2025

In this blog, Andrea Marilyn Pragashini Immanuel, PhD Candidate and Law Academic Associate at the Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness, reflects on the importance of undertaking a holistic analysis of international law to address the instrumentalization of nationality during armed conflict.

Understanding nationality and statelessness in the context of armed conflict is important given the link between conflict and statelessness. Globally, there are about 120 ongoing armed conflicts, with several millions living in conflict-affected regions (see here and here). Statelessness is both a cause and consequence of armed conflict. For instance, armed conflicts in Cote d'Ivoire and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) occurred as a result of governments’ discriminatory nationality policies towards specific ethnic groups resulting in their statelessness. In Syria, policies of the Bashar al-Assad government imposing excessive costs for obtaining legal identity documents combined with the loss and the destruction of legal identity documents during the armed conflict has left several thousand at risk of statelessness. More broadly, armed conflict often triggers nationality laws and policies to include and exclude individuals based on the need of the state during the conflict (see here and here).

Given the evident link between nationality and armed conflict, this blog argues that careful attention should be paid to this interconnectedness. In this regard, first, this blog highlights that parties to the conflict often instrumentalize nationality to achieve their aims during the conflict. Second, this blog shows the importance of analysing the breadth of the international legal framework applicable during armed conflict to protect individual interests concerning nationality from the instrumentalization of nationality during conflict.

Instrumentalization of Nationality During Armed Conflict

During armed conflict, states or armed groups often instrumentalize nationality, affecting individuals. Under international law, ‘armed conflict exists whenever there is a resort to armed force between States or protracted armed violence between governmental authorities and organized armed groups or between such groups within a State’. This definition highlights the different parties to the conflict namely states or armed groups who might instrumentalize nationality, affecting the nationality of individuals.

The government of the state might instrumentalize nationality in the whole or part of the state’s territory under its control during the course of the conflict. The existence of the conflict influences the decisions that the government of that state takes during conflict, including in relation to nationality. For instance, there are allegations that the Syrian government, under Bashar al-Assad, implemented policies imposing excessive costs for obtaining legal identity documents as a means to fund the armed conflict.

Moreover, during armed conflict, de facto authorities having effective control over the territory of a state such as occupying powers and armed groups may also affect the legal status of individuals when these temporary authorities make policies concerning nationality in line with their conflict-related goals. For instance, Russia, as an occupying power, has undertaken a policy of forced naturalization in the territories of Ukraine it occupies, making Ukrainians within this territory into Russians or foreigners. In this way, Russia has used nationality to alter the identity of the population within the occupied territory. Russia has also used naturalization as a means to force individuals within the occupied territories to provide military service in its conflict with Ukraine. Similarly, armed groups often instrumentalize nationality or legal identity documents for strategic reasons or for appearing to have similar infrastructures as the de jure government of the state (see here).

The above examples show that armed conflict provides parties to the conflict the incentive and the opportunity to instrumentalize nationality. While nationality is a human right, it is also fundamentally a sovereign power and is deeply entwined with statehood and the formation of state identity. Armed conflicts often threaten the state or its government. So, in a sense, the instrumentalization of nationality is to be expected during armed conflict. For the individual, nationality is useful both as an identity and as a legal status, to access rights and services. However, during conflict, individuals could face harm based on the nationality or legal identity documents that they may or may not possess, making nationality or foreignness a marker of identity for the individual (see here). In this regard, I have emphasised the importance of acknowledging the ‘two-faced’ nature or duality of nationality when addressing statelessness in another commentary. Therefore, understanding the instrumentalization of nationality and its consequences for individuals is necessary when studying nationality in the context of armed conflict.

International Law and the Instrumentalization of Nationality

International law is useful in addressing some of the problems that individuals face due to the instrumentalization of nationality. For this, it is crucial to engage with the breadth of international law including international humanitarian law (IHL) and international human rights law (IHRL). IHL and IHRL contain rules for the regulation of the conduct of the parties to the conflict. However, IHL contains only limited rules addressing the instrumentalization of the nationality of individuals (see for instance, Article 50(2) of GCIV prohibiting the occupying power from changing the personal status, including the nationality of children). On the other hand, IHRL contains general, albeit also limited, rules regulating the grant and deprivation of nationality. For instance, IHRL does not contain any universal rule on the specific state that is to grant nationality to individuals within its territory although it contains detailed rules on deprivation of nationality (see here, here and here). The methodology in doctrine and scholarship on armed conflict is to read IHL and IHRL together to understand the protection available for individuals during armed conflict (see here). Studies on nationality and statelessness during armed conflict should also adopt this methodology to understand how international law addresses the instrumentalization of nationality and to address any gaps for the protection of the nationality status of individuals. This approach also provides a holistic understanding of the obligations of the parties to the conflict concerning the nationality of individuals under their control during conflict. In my ongoing doctoral research titled, ‘The Right to Nationality During Armed Conflict’, I have found it useful to don different hats in thinking about and analysing nationality concerns in the context of armed conflict – that of a scholar of IHL looking at nationality issues and that of a scholar of IHRL and statelessness examining the context of armed conflict. Indeed, to be holistic, analyses of these legal frameworks should also be mindful of the characterisation of nationality as a state power within the state’s reserved domain under international law.

Failing to consider the effects of armed conflict on the nationality of individuals and failing to adopt a holistic understanding of international law could lead to misinterpretation of the law and limit the extent to which international law could protect individuals’ nationality status from the instrumentalization of nationality. The (in)famousNottebohm case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the decision of the Eritrea-Ethiopia Claims Commission (EECC) best illustrate this.

First, in the Nottebohm case, the Court did not fully consider how armed conflict might affect individual interests based on the individual’s nationality. In this case, the ICJ had to decide if Nottebohm was a national of Liechtenstein enabling Liechtenstein to exercise diplomatic protection on behalf of Nottebohm against Guatemala. The Court decided that Nottebohm did not have genuine connections to Liechtenstein as a naturalized citizen and that Guatemala did not have to recognise Nottebohm’s Liechtenstein nationality for the purpose of diplomatic protection. In particular, the Court noted that Nottebohm’s naturalization ‘was to enable him to substitute for his status as a national of a belligerent State that of a national of a neutral State, with the sole aim of thus coming within the protection of Liechtenstein’. That is, the Court was aware that Nottebohm as a former German national had naturalized in a neutral country during World War II to protect his individual interests. Interestingly, the Court used Nottebohm’s decision to seek the protection of Liechtenstein through naturalization during armed conflict in its reasoning to disallow Liechtenstein from exercising protection on behalf of Nottebohm. This shows that the Court did not properly consider the harmful impact that the identity of nationality can have on individuals during armed conflict. The Court’s decision also left Nottebohm effectively stateless and without protection from the very effects of conflict that Nottebohm sought to escape (see here, here and here).

Second, the decision of the EECC on denationalization illustrates how instrumentalization of nationality during conflict can remain unaddressed as well as the misunderstanding of law that results from not undertaking a holistic approach in dealing with nationality matters arising from armed conflict situations. The EECC is an arbitral commission that adjudicated disputes between Eritrea and Ethiopia in the 1998-Eritrea Ethiopia armed conflict. The Commission addressed the denationalization by Ethiopia of Ethiopian citizens of Eritrean origin on grounds of national security during the conflict. Without undertaking a careful citizenship determination exercise, the EECC accepted Ethiopia’s claim that many of these denationalized Ethiopians were also citizens of Eritrea, making them dual nationals with ties to an enemy state of Ethiopia. In this regard, the Commission failed to acknowledge the instrumentalization of nationality by Ethiopia to exclude its nationals from the Ethiopian state by linking these nationals to the enemy through their ethnic origin. Also, the EECC found that, although Ethiopia did not follow due process in the denationalization process of these so-called dual nationals, Ethiopia had not violated international law due to the ‘exceptional wartime circumstances’ that Ethiopia faced. The Commission did not provide reasoning for how ‘wartime circumstances’ might constitute a justification for states not to follow due process when depriving individuals of their nationality. Although the Commission referred to the prohibition of the arbitrary deprivation of nationality in Article 15 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it did not elaborate whether a different test of arbitrariness for nationality deprivation applies under international law during armed conflict situations. A holistic interpretation of IHRL with IHL, including IHL requirements such as humane treatment of individuals, could have illuminated whether Ethiopia could undertake such denationalization during armed conflict. In any case, the Commission did not clarify the limitations, if any, on the right to a nationality of the individual under IHRL during armed conflict, which would permit states to conduct such denationalizations for reasons related to the conflict.

Concluding Thoughts

This blog highlights that parties to the conflict often instrumentalize nationality during armed conflict and that a holistic understanding of international law is important to understand this instrumentalization and protect individual interests related to nationality. It is crucial to remember that individuals will have to grapple with the effects of armed conflict and the instrumentalization of nationality during conflict long after the conflict ceases. In post-conflict situations, questions are bound to arise about the nationality of individuals during the conflict and their conduct based on this nationality. In such circumstances, one should not forget that it is the conduct of parties to the conflict that produce specific results for individuals in relation to their nationality during the conflict and the need to assess the legality of such conduct under IHL and IHRL. It is important to remember the top-down nature of nationality as a concept that moves from a place of power (the state) towards the individual and may be weaponizable against the individual. Understanding the instrumentalization of nationality and adopting a holistic understanding of international law to address this instrumentalization is also helpful to address the accountability of the parties to the conflict for interfering with the individual’s nationality.

_{Image by H Liu on Unsplash}