Buzard, David A. (2021). Ethnocentric nationality in the Democratic Republic of the Congo: An analysis under international human rights law. African Human Rights Law Journal, 21(2), 985-1008. https:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.17159\/1996-2096\/2021\/v21n2a39<\/p>\n
Summary:<\/span> In order to dismantle institutionalised tribalism in the <\/span>Democratic Republic of the Congo, which has fostered recurring war and <\/span>armed conflict, its lynchpin of ethnocentric citizenship must be removed.<\/span> Due to the Congolese law of nationality by birth being grounded in <\/span>ethnicity, Congolese nationality has been and remains subject to political<\/span> manipulation, particularly concerning the Banyamulenge people. In\u00a0 the <\/span>latter half of the twentieth century the Congolese state has alternatively <\/span>granted, withdrawn and reinstated their Congolese citizenship.<\/span> Fundamentally, the basic Congolese nationality law \u2013 anchored in <\/span>the Congolese Constitution \u2013 perpetuates a legal framework for racial<\/span> division which does nothing to hinder but only enables malicious <\/span>sympathies that tend toward exclusion, persecution, expulsion and<\/span> genocide. To address this existential flaw, this article describes how the <\/span>primacy of ethnicity in the Congolese law of nationality by birth violates<\/span> three international human rights treaties that the DRC has accepted, <\/span>thus laying a foundation for legal action to change the Constitution and <\/span>nationality law of the DRC.<\/span><\/p>\n