Gabonese nationality law is regulated by the Constitution of Gabon, as amended; the Gabonese Nationality Code, and its revisions; and various international agreements to which the country is a signatory. These laws determine who is, or is eligible to be, a national of Gabon. The legal means to acquire nationality, formal legal membership in a nation, differ from the domestic relationship of rights and obligations between a national and the nation, known as citizenship. Nationality describes the relationship of an individual to the state under international law, whereas citizenship is the domestic relationship of an individual within the nation. Gabonese nationality is typically obtained under the principle of jus soli, i.e. by birth in Gabon, or of jus sanguinis, born to parents with Gabonese nationality. It can be granted to persons with an affiliation to the country, or to a permanent resident who has lived in the country for a given period of time through naturalization.
Acquisition of nationality Nationality can be acquired in Gabon at birth or later in life through naturalization.
By birth Those who acquire nationality at birth include:
Children born anywhere who have at least one parent who is a Gabonese national of origin; Children born in Gabon who would otherwise be stateless; or Abandoned children or orphans discovered in the territory whose parents are unknown, but assumed to be Gabonese.
By naturalization Naturalization can be granted to persons who have resided in the territory for a sufficient period of time to confirm they understand the customs and traditions of the society. General provisions are that applicants have good character and conduct; have no criminal convictions; no serious physical or mental incapacity; and are invested in Gabon. Applicants must typically have resided in the country for five years. Besides foreigners meeting the criteria, other persons who may be naturalized include:
Children born to foreign nationals in Gabon may apply for nationality at majority; Children born in countries neighboring Gabonese territory or who have been raised by Gabonese nationals and resided in the territory for ten years, can opt for Gabonese nationality of origin in the year prior to reaching majority; The spouse of a Gabonese national after three years of marriage; Adoptees whose parents are Gabonese automatically acquire nationality upon completion of the legal adoption process; Minor children can be automatically naturalized when their parent acquires nationality; or Persons who have provided exceptional service to the nation may naturalize without other conditions.
Loss of nationality Gabonese nationals can renounce their nationality pending approval by the state. Nationals may be denaturalized in Gabon for committing serious crimes; committing crimes against the state or state security; or for fraud, misrepresentation, or concealment in a naturalization petition. Persons who previously had nationality and wish to repatriate must establish residency in the country and apply for reinstatement.
Dual nationality Dual nationality has been allowed in Gabon since 1962; however, the president is required to be a Gabonese of origin descended of four generations of Gabonese ancestors.
History Portuguese, African kingdoms period (1474–1839) In 1472 Portuguese sailor, Lopes Gonçalves sighted the Gabon Estuary and continued exploring southward from modern-day Libreville to the cape which bears his name, arriving in 1473 or 1474. Prior to the involvement of Europeans, the Pygmy- and Bantu-speaking people who had settled in the region did not share a language or develop a common political system. Instead, the mobile societies, which migrated within a few decades, were organized in a clan-based system. A village headman, who had distinguished himself through prowess in battle, hunting, trade, or rituals was at the top of the social hierarchy. Below him were his dependents, allies, and slaves. Wealth was derived by controlling people, trading wives and dependents as commodities to increase power. By 1600, conflicts had arisen with European trading networks and British, Dutch, and French merchants were trading in the region for slaves and ivory. These encounters transformed the coastal communities into mercantile centers within centralized kingdoms.
By 1700, the Kingdom of Orungu was operating near Cape Lopez and began to dominate the trade in beeswax, copal, dye materials, ebony, and ivory. By 1760, the Orungu were engaged in the slave trade, but primarily as purchasers of slaves from the Dutch, rather than sellers of slaves. They increasingly implemented taxation schemes and by the mid-eighteenth century had become one of the dominant kingdoms of the coast. The Mpongwe chiefs, who had been pushed to their north, in the Gabon Estuary during the previous century, were actively engaged as middlemen between trading networks. Vying for control of key trading outposts, the African kingdoms came into conflict with each other, forcing some of the clans to move inward from the coast to take refuge in more remote forested areas. At the turn of the nineteenth century, Brazilian, Portuguese and Spanish slave traders increased their involvement in the slave trade as the British, Dutch, and French withdrew. Both British and French patrol boats guarded the coast to protect trade routes and halt slaving.
French period (1839–1960) In 1839, French admiral, Édouard Bouët-Willaumez, signed a commercial treaty with the headmen along the coast hoping to gain benefits of trade as well as agricultural land to be developed. Continuing with treaty making over the next several years, he signed treaties with most of the headmen in the Gabon Estuary. In 1848, Bouët-Willaumez established the foundations of Libreville and the following year brought a group of slaves liberated from a Dutch ship to work as wage laborers on the nearby plantations. The site would become the first colonial capital and military outpost in Gabon. By 1885, the slave trade had been replaced by commerce in dye-making plants, ivory, and rubber. Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza was appointed commissioner general of France's possessions of French Congo and Gabon in 1886. In 1891, the two colonies were incorporated into one entity and in 1894 de Brazza granted a large concession to the French trading house of Daumas Béraud and the Societe du Haut Ogooué (Society of Upper Ogooué) in Gabon, granting them a monopoly on trade in exchange for governing the region. De Brazza left the Congo in 1897, but his successors continued using corporate trade concessions to manage affairs in the French possessions licensing forty companies. On 29 December 1903, France issued a decree placing Gabon, Moyen-Congo (Middle Congo, the previous colony of French Congo), the newly established territories of Ubangi-Shari and Chad under French Congo's commissioner general at Brazzaville. Gabon was granted a lieutenant-governor in Libreville to oversee its administration. In 1910, these colonies were federated into French Equatorial Africa.
In 1848, slavery was abolished throughout the French Empire and the Civil Code was extended to all of the French citizens in the colonies. Under the Civil Code, women were legally incapacitated and paternal authority was established over their children. Upon marriage, a woman married to a French man automatically acquired the same nationality as her spouse. Illegitimate children were barred from inheritance and nationality could only be transmitted through a father. Non-citizen nationals were governed by traditional laws concerning marriage and inheritance which placed the well-being of the community above individual rights. These laws prevented a wife from being treated as a slave, required her husband to support her, and entitled her kin to a bride price, to compensate them for the loss of her fertility to their kinship group and secure the legality of the union. Having paid the price for the marriage contract, she and her offspring belonged to the kinship network of her husband and could be inherited if her husband died.
The French Nationality Law of 1889 codified previous statutory laws, changing the French standard from jus sanguinis to jus soli and was extended to the French West Indies. Under its terms, women who would become stateless by the rule to acquire their spouse's nationality were allowed to retain their French nationality upon marriage. The Nationality Law was modified in 1897 when it was extended to the remainder of the French colonies. Clarification in the 1897 decree included that bestowing nationality by birth in French territory only applied to children born in France, restoring descent requirements for the colonies. Under the Code de l'indigénat (Code of Indigenous Status) promulgated for Algeria in 1881 and extended to French Equatorial Africa in 1910, nationals in the new colonies followed customary law. On 23 May 1912, a decree was issued specifically addressing the status of French Equatorial Africans. Under its terms, native persons born in Equatorial Africa were nationals of France but not citizens and were subject to the Indigenous Code. Upon reaching the age of twenty-one, they could be naturalized; however, the law was explicit that neither a wife nor the children of a naturalized Equatorial African automatically derived his French nationality. Only if the spouses were married under French law and the children registered in the Civil Registry could they acquire the status of the husband or father. To naturalize Equatorial Africans had to be able to both read and write French and had to have served in the French military service or have been decorated with the Legion of Honor.
Following the end of World War I France passed a law, "Décret N°. 24 on 25 March 1915 that allowed subjects or protected persons who were non-citizen nationals and had established domicile in a French territory to acquire full citizenship, including the naturalization of their wives and minor children, by having received the cross of the Legion of Honor, having obtained a university degree, having rendered service to the nation, having attained the rank of an officer or received a medal from the French army, who had married a Frenchwoman and established a one-year residency; or who had resided for more than ten years in a colony other than their country of origin. A 14 January 1918 decree written for Equatorial Africa and French West Africa was aimed to provide naturalization for decorated veterans of the war and their families, providing they had not previously been denied their rights nor participated in actions against French rule.