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Treaty of Lausanne

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aliasesLausanne Treaty

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Summary

The 1923 treaty that concluded World War I, established modern Turkey’s boundaries and effectively ended the Ottoman Empire; in Chapter 8 of Rethinking Statehood in Palestine its Article 30 is the legal foundation of Palestinian nationality, formed on August 6, 1924 when the treaty was ratified (Rethinking Statehood in Palestine, PDF p.214-215).

Details

  • Article 30 specified: “Turkish subjects habitually resident in territory which in accordance with the provisions of the present Treaty is detached from Turkey will become ipso facto, in the conditions laid down by the local law, nationals of the State to which such territory is transferred” (PDF p.214).

  • The treaty also fixed borders and established separate nationalities for Transjordan, Egypt, Syria and Lebanon, each territory then codifying its nationality in a citizenship law (PDF p.215).

  • The UN legal advisor’s 1951 reading of Resolution 194 defined the covered Palestine refugees by entitlement under the Palestine nationality law of 1924 emanating from the treaty, correcting the 1925 Palestine Citizenship Order’s exclusions of Palestinians born or residing abroad (PDF p.218-219).

  • The PLO’s unpublished 2012 draft citizenship law grounded its basic rule in the treaty: Palestinian citizens are those who acquired or had the right to acquire Palestinian nationality as of August 6, 1924 (PDF p.227).

  • In Banko’s The Invention of Palestinian Citizenship, nationality regulations first in the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres and then in the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne were a medium through which the League attempted to define sovereignty; until Lausanne’s ratification in 1923 Britain dealt with native Ottoman subjects and immigrant Jews arriving after 1914 as two ‘nationality’ groups (The Invention of Palestinian Citizenship, 1918–1947, PDF p.39-42 / printed p.28-31).

  • Lausanne excluded the text of Sèvres Article 129, which would have given ipso facto Palestinian nationality to non-Ottoman Jewish residents of two years, following Bentwich’s option amendment seconded by the Zionist Organisation (PDF p.54 / printed p.43).

  • Banko states that both Sèvres and Lausanne institutionalised racial separation in the post-war Levant and stipulated nationality orders in each mandate within twelve months of endorsement by Turkey (PDF p.53-54 / printed p.42-43).

  • In Banko’s account, Lausanne’s state-succession regulations forced the rush to complete the Palestine nationality law after its application in September 1924; the treaty required native inhabitants to be resident in Palestine on the date it came into force and to possess proof of Ottoman nationality, so residence at that date trumped jus sanguinis and jus soli, and former Ottoman nationals abroad were obliged to declare their willingness to become nationals of their new post-Ottoman states within two years and then return to those states to reside (The Invention of Palestinian Citizenship, 1918–1947, PDF p.58 / printed p.47, PDF p.60 / printed p.49).

  • Article 34 gave Ottoman nationals resident abroad the right to take the nationality of their successor state within two years after the treaty came into effect in August 1924, using the phrase ‘native of’ for former Ottomans; the 1925 Order’s Article 2 instead used ‘born in Palestine’, a difference that denied citizenship to certain descendants abroad (PDF p.96 / printed p.85, PDF p.62 / printed p.51).

  • Samuel’s November 1925 amendment put the Order’s option timeframe into effect retroactively from 6 August 1924 to bring it completely in line with Article 34’s timeframe (PDF p.63 / printed p.52).

Rethinking Statehood in Palestine, Palestinian nationality, Susan M. Akram, UN General Assembly Resolution 194, Right of Return

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