1. Discriminatory Nationality Laws
Kiribati and Solomon Islands are the only two countries in the Pacific which contain gender discriminatory provisions in relation to citizenship acquisition, while Papua New Guinea’s legislation contains gender discriminatory provisions with regard to birth registration. In Kiribati, women do not have equal rights to confer citizenship to their children. Persons born in Kiribati of I-Kiribati descent are automatically entitled to citizenship. Those born in Kiribati and not of I-Kiribati descent are only automatically entitled to citizenship if they do not hold any other citizenship. Citizenship by descent is limited to children whose fathers are Kiribati citizens. Children born outside of Kiribati to mothers who are Kiribati citizens are not able to acquire Kiribati citizenship. Unlike other Pacific Island States (such as Tonga), Kiribati has a small overseas population, with approximately 5,000 I-Kiribati’s living in New Zealand and Australia. There are no reliable statistics on the number of persons this provision has affected.
While Solomon Islands did amend some of the gender discriminatory provisions previously included in its legislation, discriminatory provisions remain for foreign women married to a citizen and women who have jointly adopted a child. Foreign women married to a citizen must renounce their citizenship to apply for citizenship and can only do so with the consent of their husband. The law is further discriminatory against women who have jointly adopted a child. They are denied equal right to confer nationality as the application for citizenship of the child can only be made by the father.
Papua New Guinea also has gender discriminatory provisions in relation to birth registration, which stipulate that in the case of a child born to foreign parents in the country, only the father can act as a witness to the birth. This could result in children born to foreign parents unable to register their birth, potentially placing them at risk of statelessness.
Palau’s citizenship legislation contains ethnic discrimination as only ethnic Palauans are able to apply for naturalization. Another country which has discriminatory citizenship legislation is Tonga which stipulates that children born out of wedlock are registered at birth as ‘illegitimate’ and are, as a result, unable to inherit land or title and experience stigma and marginalization.
2. Lack of Legal Safeguards Against Childhood Statelessness
The nationality laws of seven States (Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Vanuatu) have no explicit protection for foundlings born on their territory. The citizenship laws of four States (Australia, Fiji, New Zealand and Tuvalu) provide citizenship to foundlings born on their territory. Foundling children in both Australia and New Zealand are also automatically considered citizens. Tuvalu and Fiji provide presumption that a foundling shall be considered to have been born within the country and in turn able to access citizenship through each State’s jus soli provisions. Three States (Kiribati, Marshall Islands and Papua New guinea) provide limited protections for foundlings. The limited jus soli provisions in the laws of Kiribati and the Marshall Islands while structurally similar to those of Fiji and Tuvalu, do not explicitly provide that abandoned children are considered to be born in Kiribati or the Marshall Islands, as such it is less clear how easily foundling children are able to access citizenship. The Constitution of Papua New Guinea provides foundlings automatic access to citizenship by descent by deeming them the be the child of a Papua New Guinean citizen.
Seven States (Australia, Fiji, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, Nauru, New Zealand and Tuvalu) provide citizenship to children born on their territories who would otherwise be stateless. There is limited protection provided under the laws of Samoa (at the minister discretion) and Papua New Guinea to stateless persons born on the territory. There is no protection under the laws of the remaining six States (Federated States of Micronesia, Palau, the Solomon Islands, Tonga and Vanuatu).
3. Citizenship Stripping
Concerns have been expressed by UNHCR and independent NGOs regarding the potential statelessness of West Papuan refugees in Papua New Guinea, who due to absence from West Papua have lost their Indonesian citizenship and have been unable to access Papua New Guinean citizenship through naturalization. The Immigration and Citizenship Authority of the country has estimated that there are between 10-15,000 Indonesian Papuans living in the country.1353 While there have been reports in recent years of some West Papuan refugees accessing citizenship, this does not appear to be universal,1354 In 2021, the US Department of State reported that no Indonesian Papuans had been granted citizenship that year. In Kiribati, only a person of non-I-Kiribati descent can be stripped of Kiribati citizenship if they breach allegiance to Kiribati, obtain nationality of another country by voluntary act, or, if the Minister deems it necessary for “public good”, leaving stateless persons with no further protections. Such a provision is in violation of the 1961 Statelessness Convention as “public good” is not an acceptable reason to deprive a person of citizenship. Naturalized citizens of Tonga may be deprived of citizenship on very broad grounds (including defamation of the Royal family or any offence which involves dishonesty or fraud) leaving them vulnerable to statelessness.
4. Administrative Barriers
Administrative barriers to nationality appear to be less prevalent in the Pacific region compared to areas such as East Asia where household registration plays a vital evidentiary role for citizenship. This does not mean that administrative barriers are non-existent, for example in Papua New Guinea children of refugee fathers and Papua New Guinean mothers continue to face both legal and administrative barriers to gaining birth certificates and citizenship. Knowledge on the administrative barriers to citizenship is limited by our lack of country partners across the Pacific and nuisance and contextualized understandings of the practical applications of laws and policies. The lengthy citizenship application process remains an administrative barrier in Australia, where refugees reported waiting on average 215 days for their application to be processed.
*Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ birth registration rate was reported at only 77.2% in the same year.
Source: “Data Warehouse,” UNICEF DATA; UN Statistics Division, Coverage of Birth and Death Registration’ (February 2021)
In several Pacific Islands States, including Fiji, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Samoa, Solomon Islands, and Tuvalu, birth registration access tends to be lower in rural areas. Due to stigmatization towards single mothers, children of unwed mothers in Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Samoa, Solomon Islands, and Tonga tend to either remain unregistered or be registered with inaccurate information regarding the parents. The need for a centralized and streamlined birth registration system has been expressed for Kiribati and Micronesia respectively. Late registration fees in four States (Fiji, Kiribati, Solomon Islands, and Tuvalu) present a barrier to birth registration. In Fiji, wealth of households and maternal age and education level are key factors influencing levels of birth registration among Fijian children. Further, i-Taukei speaking households also demonstrated notable disparities in birth registration rates compared to other groups.
5. Requirement of Birth Registration for Citizenship Acquisition
A birth certifcate can serve as a form of evidence of citizenship in Australia, Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, New Zealand, and Tonga. Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Palau, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu do not specify whether birth registration is required for citizenship certification. However, in Vanuatu, lack of birth registration or a birth certifcate can mean that a person does not have the documentation they need to determine their citizenship eligibility. In Papua New Guinea, Samoa, and Solomon Islands, a citizenship certifcate is needed to prove citizenship.
6. Statelessness and Climate Change
As a region, the Pacific faces some of the greatest risks and has seen the greatest attention regarding the threat of climate-induced statelessness. There are a number of articles and reports written on the risk of statelessness faced by citizens of low-lying Pacific Island States including Kiribati, the Marshall Islands and Tuvalu due to the impact of climate-induced sea-level rise. This risk of statelessness from ‘disappearing States’ currently remains a hypothetical question, with most experts agreeing that this scenario will not inevitably lead to statelessness. Further, before any States ‘disappear’, the impacts of relocation and an increase in displaced populations on communities and individual’s nationality status will need to be faced. It is this displacement across borders rather than the ‘disappearance’ of islands that poses the greatest risk of statelessness in the future.
In Tuvalu, gaps in protective legislation against statelessness exist with regard to naturalized citizens subject to climate-induced displacement. Tuvalu’s legislation on loss of citizenship includes a provision which states that naturalized citizens will lose their citizenship of Tuvalu if they do not continue to comply with the requirements of naturalization, which include remaining financially self-supporting. In the event of climate-induced displacement, the affected person may not be able to maintain financial self-sufficiency, making naturalized citizens in this scenario potentially vulnerable to deprivation of citizenship. Tuvalu has, however, enacted new legislation in 2023 which redefines the definition of statehood for Tuvalu. The Constitution provides that the State’s physical territory will remain the same, regardless of rising sea levels, and establishes the country’s intention for “responding to climate change, which threatens the security and survival of its people and its land”.
