A high court in central Japan has granted Japanese nationality to a child who was born in the country to refugee parents from Afghanistan.
Japan’s Nationality Law stipulates that Japanese nationality is granted to a child born in the country whose parents are both stateless.
The case before the Nagoya High Court was brought by the parents who have been granted refugee status in Japan.
They had asked a family court to grant Japanese nationality to their child who was born in November, 2022 in Aichi Prefecture. They claimed they were both effectively stateless at that time because Afghanistan had been taken over by the Taliban Islamist group.
The family court dismissed their claim, and the parents appealed to the Nagoya High Court.
In its ruling on Wednesday, the presiding judge, Hasegawa Yasuhiro, pointed out that while the Taliban declared the establishment of a state in September 2021, no other country, including Japan, has recognized its legitimacy.
The judge said it should therefore be determined that when the child was born in 2022, Afghanistan as a nation state had effectively ceased to exist, making the child’s parents stateless as a result.
The judge concluded that the child should be given Japanese nationality as stipulated by Japan’s Nationality Law.
A lawyer for the parents, Nagai Yasuyuki, said this is probably the first case in which Japanese nationality has been granted to a child born in Japan to parents from Afghanistan.
He said the ruling is extremely significant for other children who could become stateless because of circumstances surrounding their parents’ nationality.