CITIZENSHIP UNDER INTERNATIONAL LAW: A GENERAL ANALYSIS Submitted byShivani Srivastava Division: C P.R.N-16010324259 Batch- 2016-21 Symbiosis Law School, Hyderabad Symbiosis International University, Pune. On Under the guidance of PROF. DWARKANATH Faculty, Symbiosis Law School, Hyderabad Symbiosis International (Deemed University) 1 INDEX ABSTRACT INTRODUCTION SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY RESEARCH OBJECTIVES SCOPE OF THE STUDY RESEARCH METHODOLOGY LITERATURE REVIEW NOTION OF CITIZENSHIP AND ITS DEVELOPMENTS CITIZENSHIP AS MEMBERSHIP IN NATION STATE THEORIES OF CITIZENSHIP DISCREPANCIES OF CITIZENSHIP IN INTERNATIONAL LAW CONCLUSION BIBLIOGRAPHY 2 ABSTRACT “Citizenship is the connection between an individual and a sovereign state, characterized by the laws of that state and with relating obligations and rights. It infers the status of opportunity with going with obligations. Citizenship is the most advantaged type of ethnicity, a more extensive term that is utilized in global law to mean all people whom a state is qualified for secure. Ethnicity likewise serves to indicate the connection between a state and substances other than people. The privilege to citizenship may fill a momentary need, establishing the insurance of different rights through the still-enthusiastic institutional vehicle of the state. In the more drawn out run, in any case, the privilege to citizenship may compound different powers that are dissolving state power. This chance focuses, thusly, to global law and foundations as the essential area for the security of rights. The development of global citizenship law figures midway to this scrutinize. The citizenship is fundamentally submitted to a lawful arrangement of interior guideline, the states having a select part in building up in its own enactment both the habits of securing and losing the citizenship, and furthermore all the rights and commitments which stream from the political and lawful reference of a state's participation.” KEYWORDS: Citizenship, Nationality, Statelessness, International Law, Rights 3 INTRODUCTION Every individual shall have an enrolment as a citizen. What's more, it isn't about political participation, however an inborn right procured by the individual since birth. What's imperative is the concept of citizenship, a privilege authorized through constitution of any nation, as significant as the privilege to life. Basically, the two rights coincide and consolidate in an amicable suite which sits idle yet gives an exceptional incentive to the man, the resident. The citizenship is a constant legitimate report with respect to the person. “Although we ordinarily think of citizenship as public, private international law covers the same ground as post national citizenship and differentiated citizenship. Among other developments, the idea of post national, or denationalized, citizenship captures the fact that noncitizens have come to have many of the rights traditionally limited to citizen.”1 “Nationality can be acquired in one of three ways: by birth on a State’s territory (jus soli), by descent from a State’s national (jus sanguinis), or by naturalization. The citizenship laws of each State dictate whether the State applies jus soli or jus sanguinis and explain the requirements for naturalization. In States that apply pure jus soli, an individual acquires the citizenship of that State by being born on the State’s territory, regardless of the citizenship or immigration status of the individual’s parents.”2 This characterization fits the most famous ruling on nationality practice from an international tribunal, the Nottebohm3 “decision from the International Court of Justice. International law had something to say about nationality, but only as a matter of order management. The early law of nationality was bounded by the interests of states vis-a-vis each other, not the interests of individuals. Only with the dawn of the human rights revolution in the mid-twentieth century did international law come tentatively to pose an alternate conception of nationality, one that took rights into account—but even then, only in ways that minimally affected the identity function of national rules.” The citizenship report is enduring in time, starts with the birth and, essentially, vanishes, once with the physical vanishing and supreme in space, it exists wherever there is an individual, in the provenience state, in another nation, on the ocean, noticeable all around or in universe. “Similarly, private international law can include noncitizens through rules such as those 1 Linda Bosniak, THE CITIZEN AND THE ALIEN: Dilemmas of Contemporary Membership 23-26,34-35 (2006) 2 Citizenship and Nationality, Available at: https://ijrcenter.org/thematic-research-guides/nationality-citizenship/ 3 Nottebohm (Liech. v. Guat.), 1955 ICJ REP. 4 4 regarding standing to sue and jurisdiction. Differentiated citizenship is the result of policies of multiculturalism in western democracies. In some cases, citizenship branched out from individual rights, to the rights of individuals belonging to minorities, all the way to the collective rights of minorities; and from rights to religion, language, and culture, to forms of autonomy for historical minorities. Comparable to differentiated citizenship, private international law controls the heterogeneity of a society via such rules as choice of law and recognition of foreign judgments.”4. “But when a person is vested with only one nationality, which is attributed to him or her either jure sanguinis or jure soli, or by a valid naturalisation entailing the positive loss of the former nationality, the theory of effective nationality cannot be applied without the risk of causing confusion. It lacks a sufficiently positive basis to be applied to a nationality which finds support in a state law. There does not in fact exist any criterion of proven effectiveness for disclosing the effectiveness of a bond with a political collectivity, and the persons by the thousands who, because of the facility of travel in the modern world, possess the positive legal nationality of a State, but live in foreign States where they are domiciled and where their family and business center is located, would be exposed to non-recognition, at the international level, of the nationality with which they are undeniably vested by virtue of the laws of their national State, if this doctrine were to be generalized.”5 When in doubt just the citizens of a state can have political rights and can gain admittance to open, common or military positions. The global law doesn't confine the state's opportunity to build up through its interior enactment the lawful framework to its own citizens, yet can choose the conditions under which the built-up legitimate framework is opposable to different states. The rise of an international law of citizenship has expansive ramifications for the nature of the state. To the degree that an international right to citizenship status decouples citizenship from natural types of network, the new law of citizenship could sabotage the solidarities on which state limits may depend. At the end of the day, the unintended long-haul consequence of arranging citizenship practice in the domain of common liberties might be to decrease the estimation of citizenship. As more people come to appreciate a qualification to that status, citizenship may 4 Karen Knop, Citizenship, Public and Private: Law and Contemporary Problems, vol. 71, no. 3, 309–341 (2008) Flegenheimer Claim, 20 September 1958 (Italian – United States Conciliation Commission), International Law Reports, 91-150, (1958) 5 5 come to be worth less. This isn't to contend against endeavours to propel an international law of citizenship. In the short and medium term, a privilege to citizenship will by implication advance the assurance of a scope of different rights on public turf. The privilege to citizenship may fill a temporary need, establishing the insurance of different rights through the stillincredible institutional vehicle of the state. In the longer run, nonetheless, the privilege to citizenship may compound different powers that are disintegrating state power. This chance focuses, thus, to international law and foundations as the essential area for the security of rights. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY “As an issue of customary principle, global law has wanted to sit quiet about the citizenship practices of states what's more, the terms on which states decide the limits of their participations. Through a lot of the Westphalian time, states have been basically unconstrained regarding who gets citizenship and on what footing.” “Reframing citizenship status as an individual right is crucial to the shift. In so far as citizenship is so framed, its delimitation can no longer turn on traditional membership criteria, many of which collide with other norms of both liberal democracy and international law.”6 Generally, citizenship status has been viewed as a matter of public self-definition, desirously protected more as an issue of reflex than legitimization. Identity has been compared with character, as a rule agreeing with ethnic, strict, or other sociocultural network markers, which, thusly, have pretty much planned onto regional spaces. “The international importance of citizenship is as: (1) entitlement to exercise diplomatic protection, (2) state responsibility for nationals, (3) duty of admission, (4) allegiance, (5) right to refuse extradition (6) determination of enemy status in wartime, and (7) exercise of jurisdiction. Peter J. Spiro. “A NEW INTERNATIONAL LAW OF CITIZENSHIP.” The American Journal of International Law, vol. 105, no. 4, 694–746 (2011) 6 6 In qualifying these elements as being of international importance, it indicates that they relate both to international law and to the general international context of citizenship. For our purposes here, it is important to examine these areas in terms of whether they constitute consequences or functions of nationality in international or municipal law, or are linked to a wider perception or importance of citizenship in international relations.”7 The privilege to citizenship may fill a momentary need, establishing the insurance of different rights through the still-enthusiastic institutional vehicle of the state. In the more drawn out run, in any case, the privilege to citizenship may compound different powers that are dissolving state power. This chance focuses, thusly, to global law and foundations as the essential area for the security of rights the development of global citizenship law figures midway to this scrutinize. RESEARCH OBJECTIVES The present research aims to achieve the following research objectives: - To analyse the concept and limit of citizenship under International Law with regard to its effect on right to citizenship of an individual - To provide a developed insight into various factors as statelessness and nationality that impact citizenship under International Law. - To differentiate between various principles of nationality and emphasize on concepts of enforcement of citizenship at an International level. SCOPE OF THE STUDY “As the worldwide common freedoms system has become more grounded and more grounded and the way of life of regarding rights has developed, absence of citizenship has gotten one of only a handful not many grounds whereupon states can deny people their privileges and not be censured. When disregarding or neglecting to secure the privileges of non-citizens, states may guarantee that they do regard basic freedoms, yet are just not answerable for non-citizens who live inside their fringes. Partly, they are right, it is passable to make qualifications between the privileges of citizens and the privileges of non-citizens. Yet, a large number of the world's ‘non-citizens' 7 Gabriel Starke, Starke’s International Law, Editor by Shearer, London, Butter worth’s, 309, (1994) 7 may in actuality be citizens whose privilege to citizenship is being abused by not being perceived by their state. Since the privilege to citizenship is ineffectively characterized, we ought to be dubious of states' cases regarding who the non-citizens are.” Notwithstanding these shortcomings, global basic liberties law obliges states in conceding and retaining citizenship somehow or another. For instance, global antidiscrimination standards clarify that denying citizenship to people based on their sex, identity, religion or different status is impermissible. In any case, by and by, loads of citizenship laws separate infringing upon these standards. “That is now changing. Bars on gender discrimination in citizenship practice, as well as constraints on the termination of citizenship, are hardening. Recent developments point to the emergence of norms that require the extension of territorial birth right citizenship in some cases and that limit discretion concerning naturalization thresholds. International law may also come to protect an individual’s right to maintain multiple nationality.”8 Citizenship from organic forms of community, the new law of citizenship could undermine the solidarities on which state capacities may depend. In other words, the unintended long-term result of situating citizenship practice in the realm of human rights may be to diminish the value of citizenship. As more individuals come to enjoy an entitlement to that status, citizenship may come to be worth less. This is not to argue against efforts to advance an international law of citizenship. In the short and medium term, a right to citizenship will indirectly advance the protection of a range of other rights on national turf. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY Research design: The purpose of this study is to gain insight into the concept of citizenship under the ambit of International Law and to further highlight the impact of the nationality with use of relevant case laws and illustrations. Data analysis: The current research project shall use a general analysis approach to highlight and explain the possession and imperativeness of nationality under International Law. Further, a doctrinal legal method shall be used to carry out the research pertaining to the right of citizenship/nationality as a fundamental right. Further, an analytical method has be used to determine the various aspects like acquisition and loss of citizenship. 8 Alfred M. Boll, Multiple Nationality and International Law: DUAL CITIZENSHIP IN EUROPE: FROM NATIONHOOD TO SOCIETAL INTEGRATION 171, 174 (2007) 8 Data collection method: This research shall use primary as well as secondary sources to carry out the data analysis pertaining to the concept of citizenship under International Law. LITERATURE REVIEW David Owen’s (2010) article “On the Right to have Nationality Rights: Statelessness, Citizenship and Human Rights, critically analyses the extent to which international law protects a right to have a nationality. The extent to which choices in terms of nationality issues still constitute the last bastion of state sovereignty are obviously a key consideration. He emphasises the crucial importance of this right to a nationality, while drawing extensively on the equality principle, but also identifies various flaws as to the implementation of this right.” Patrick Wautelet (2001) in his work, “The Next Frontier: Dual Nationality as a MultiLayered Concept, identifies the shifts over time in the baseline approach of international law regarding dual nationality, while calling for a further differentiation in that approach, more particularly considering the different strength of the ties one has with the respective states concerned.” Teun Struycken (2013) in their research article has states that, “Citizenship has a private international law dimension. Struycken analyses the reduced significance of nationality/legal citizenship as connecting factor while zooming in on religious family law, and taking due account of the jurisprudence of the ECtHR and the CJEU.” Orgad (2017) “correctly distinguishes between two types of liberalism that in turn affect citizenship. One concerns liberalism as modus vivendi, allowing plural ways of life as long as one is committed to obey the laws and to peaceful coexistence. The other considers liberalism as an ethical project and also require a commitment to liberal values and institutions (muscular liberalism)” NOTION OF CITIZENSHIP AND ITS DEVELOPMENTS “The notion of ‘citizenship’ has triggered a burgeoning literature from a wide variety of disciplines, including political theory, sociology, political philosophy, and law. Notwithstanding the divergent points of view that are visible in that literature, broad agreement about the core meaning of citizenship does emerge. Citizenship refers to membership of a polity, of a political community, and thus revolves around questions of inclusion and—as the 9 other side of the coin—exclusion.”9 “Another central theme throughout the literature is the fundamental role of equality in relation to citizenship, not only the entitlement of citizens to equal rights, but also the expanding role of the prohibition of discrimination in relation to access and deprivation of citizenship.”10 The state could in any case be the prevailing perspective for conversations of citizenship, the thought citizenship has antiquated inception. An expressed explanation is called for preceding digging into a verifiable record of the movements after some time of the most pertinent political network. The writing uncovers that a few writers utilize the terms citizenship and nationality conversely, while others utilize the two terms to portray the connection between an individual and the state, however regarding distinctive legal gatherings: citizenship would concern the public legal discussion, though nationality the global legal gathering. As will be clarified all the more completely beneath, non-legal orders recognize different components of citizenship, one of which concerns the legal connection between an individual and an express, the others catch meaningful citizenship. In this article the term 'nationality' is utilized when alluding to the legal connection between an individual and the state, while 'citizenship' indicates the more extensive term, additionally including different elements of participation. Pertinent to the present day, the focal reference purpose of citizenship, the most pertinent 'political network', remains the state, however clearly different on-going advancements infer a re-arrangement of citizenship. Customarily, the state spoke to the key institutional request, additionally in light of the fact that it had a focal function in the assistance and guideline of the mechanical, instructive and social sector. However, meanwhile the lives of individuals are progressively dictated by approaches and practices that are not set by the state. The complex advancements in this regard have likewise set off reconceptualization's of citizenship. Two improvements are featured here. “Firstly, powers that were traditionally held by states have been shifted towards regional and local governments and towards international organisations. The resulting multi-level governance has gone hand in hand with the recognition of multiple, intersecting memberships. EU citizenship is particularly noteworthy in this respect. While EU citizenship is attached to national citizenship of one of the Member States, and these states in principle retain virtual complete freedom to decide the requirements for acquisition, the status of EU citizenship has 9 Joppke p. 392 (2017); Shachar et al., p. 5. (2017) Rubenstein p. 5–6 (2004) 10 10 increased the interdependence of nationality policies of the Member States.11” “Furthermore, whereas EU citizenship aims to construct a European identity, and can thus been seen to undermine the link between nationality/citizenship on the one hand and the traditional nationstate on the other, EU citizenship’s residence rights do facilitate naturalisation in the Member State of residence. Finally, and as will be argued more fully below, several key rights of EU citizens point to the crucial importance of residence and voting rights for the effective realisation of membership, more particularly the right to enter and reside, and the right to vote.”12 Besides, the progressions of the international request towards 'worldwide administration' has brought about the acknowledgment of the developing part of non-state entertainers (different sorts of international associations as well as transnational enterprises, NGO's and so forth), and their genuine effect on the lives of individuals. These progressions are further disintegrating the situation of the state as reference point for participation, for 'citizenship', setting off contentions about post-public, and cosmopolitan citizenship. At long last, and despite the acknowledgment that administration is performed at numerous levels, it stays defended to commit an uncommon issue to nationality, alluding to the legal connection between an individual and the state/country state, since nationality can at present be viewed as the ace status. As the accompanying conversation on the rights that are dependent upon nationality will uncover, nationality accompanies center enrolment rights, that structure the essential reason for the successful satisfaction in other central rights. CITIZENSHIP AS MEMBERSHIP IN A NATION-STATE Since the express, 'the country state', is as yet the focal reference point for conversations about citizenship, the undeniable connection to 'patriotism', public personality and nationhood should be recognized. In reality, citizenship has been contended to be bound up with nationhood and public personality. Significantly, the meaning of 'a country' is an issue of decision, of 'public accounts': a country can be characterized on an ethnic ethnographic premise yet in addition on a more comprehensive, open, voluntarist premise. While an ethnic country is characterized by basic language, culture and conventions and is fairly credited, a metro country is established Bauböck and Giraudon, p. 448 (2009) Kochenov (2011) on the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) on EU citizenship rights referring to the cases of Rottmann (Case C-135/08, ECLI:EU:C:2010:104 11 12 11 by every one of the individuals who buy in to a political belief and agree to be limited by similar guidelines of lead and standards. In the last sense, the state, enrolment of the express, the normal citizenship, makes the country, while in the previous sense the prior country makes the state. Essentially, according to the state as reference point various theories of citizenship have been created, reflecting various dreams of the state, and of the network making up the state. Addressing the interrelation between the fundamental discerning of citizenship, the vision of the network making up the state and conditions for procuring citizenship, these various speculations interpret in contrasts with respect to methods of securing citizenship, as is especially obvious in naturalization prerequisites. Relatedly, these different theories of citizenship also translate in different approaches to optimizing the integration of migrants. Theories often distinguished in this respect include communitarian, republican and liberal theories. As communitarian theories see the state as a community of character, the emphasis is more on sameness (and assimilation), whereas liberal theories focus more on the protection of the individual, thus leaving more scope for different ethnic identities as long as there is a commitment to liberal values and institutions.13” “ A republican theory on citizenship is all about active citizenship and participation in public life, and thus screens applicants for naturalization on their civic virtues, loyalty to constitution and integration efforts.”14 While investigating citizenship as alluding to the unique connection between a resident and a country state, various elements of citizenship have been recognized. Citizenship as full enrolment of the state, is additionally partitioned in citizenship as legal status from one perspective and citizenship as socio-political participation on the other. Put in an unexpected way, notwithstanding legal citizenship, alluding to the legal connection between an individual and a state, likewise a more considerable citizenship can be recognized. “The legal status dimension triggers questions about criteria and procedures of acquisition of legal citizenship or nationality. Substantive citizenship not only encompasses the rights and duties contingent on (legal) citizenship, but also refers to questions of participation, identity and belonging. Whereas different authors identify slightly different dimensions, there are clearly recurring themes, as well as an acknowledgement that these dimensions are 13 14 Honohan, p. 90 (2017); Gans, p. 116, pp. 344–345 (2017) Bauböck p. 852. (2010) 12 interrelated. While rights, equal rights, are an essential attribute of citizenship, this special membership is not only a matter of taking part (politically and otherwise), but also of creating a collective identity and feeling part.” THEORIES OF CITIZENSHIP “Liberal universalist theory of citizenship - Liberals utilize the language of rights-based independence that challenges the particularistic rules of social participation to show up at a formal, Universalist origination of citizenship. This origination proposes citizens as 'rights bearing people's and citizenship as making sure about the structure of rights and assets' whereby the arrangement of rights is appreciated similarly by each citizen and consequently, makes an attestation for the considerable plan of citizenship which forbids emotional, discretionary and fractional treatment. “Liberals value citizenship because the rights it confers upon the individuals give them the space to pursue their individual good in their own way with minimal interference from the state, to be reflected only in the constraints to be imposed to generate respect that each individual has to show for the rights of others. In order to secure equality of opportunity among the individuals in pursuing their individual good, the state requires to be neutral among the differing conceptions of good and not prefer any particular way of life or the conception of good over others and neither impose any conception of good upon the individuals.”15 Individualistic Liberal theory of Citizenship- For individualistic liberals, an individual is an autonomous individual and a society’s basic unit. This makes it imperative for the society to enhance individual choices and assuage the societal constraints upon an individual.16 An individual should not be to be deprived of any occasion to pick whatever qualities and lifestyles they incline toward which, be that as it may, must be accomplished by considering the political network less as a social network than an authoritative structure of rights. While it has likewise been battled of an ideal liberal State as "just an assortment of people", origination of a political network is administered by shared complete strict, philosophical or moral tenets for a political network to stick to. 15 16 Karen Zivi, Making Rights Claims, A Practice of Democratic Citizenship (2012) Connover, Searing and Crewe, (2004). 13 Henceforth, what is requested of the state, as per this liberal origination, is to cling to a thought of lack of bias that propels the state to stay nonpartisan among various qualities and lifestyles and see no difference based on race, gender, or religion and benefit no specific culture over others. Further, what is required is a dainty universalistic comprehension of citizenship that applies similarly to each person, permitting the fundamental usefulness of citizenship. Inside this individualistic liberal hypothesis, in any case, the atomistic perspective on a person what's more, the ensuing origination of "resident as a conveyor of common rights", his relationship with the bigger social gatherings and dismissal for the part of social settings in moulding the individual character have end up being risky. The atomistic perspective on an individual structures a strand of liberal presumption which endeavours to develop singular character totally disengaged from the social setting. Social Liberal theory of Citizenship- “A closely related conception of social liberal theory of citizenship can be found in the Marshall’s analysis of citizenship rights. Within the liberal political tradition, he identifies three types of rights: civil, political, and social which are institutionalised in the public arenas and agencies, but are subject to the constraints imposed by other institutions, notably the market. In response to the individualistic liberal endeavour of defending individual rights at the expense of societal values and common good of the society, social liberals have reconstructed their idea of political community and approached it as an aggregation of interacting and interdependent individuals”17 This unmistakable type of political network is to be accomplished by the aggregate acknowledgment of the capacity of every individual to take an interest pretty much similarly in the political and public activity of the general public, wherein the accentuation is less on common and political rights than on social rights, metro obligations, and solidarity. Citizenship in this sense, fights Marshall, has an integrative impact which spikes a "feeling of network participation dependent on a reliability to a civilisation which is a typical ownership of the people equivalent in their rights and similarly secured by custom-based law Among the numerous worries and inconsistencies inside the liberal convention, the compromise of the proper structure of political popular government with the social result of the private enterprise stands in advance. To lay it out plainly, the subject of how to 17 Marshall (1950). 14 accommodate formal uniformity with the disparities of the class framework has pre-involved liberal researchers for the vast majority of the advanced citizenship history. In any case, their distraction has not guaranteed any conceivable setting for the issues of social approach in the advanced society. In this way, social citizenship may either make an interpretation of itself into an extreme standard of correspondence yet with a subtext of contention that may which may emerge from the causal impact of revering privileges into legal methodology or it can possibly get changed as the premise of social solidarity in the contemporary separated system and consequently rest its money after containing the socially troublesome variables in a general public.” Communitarian theory of Citizenship- “For communitarians, citizenship cannot be restricted to participation in the political community only but it equally concerns the preservation of identity, establishing the fact that citizenship is always specific to a particular community .While the liberal model of citizenship is based upon the fact of pluralism, the communitarian vision more directly presumes the attachments to shared values and feelings of solidarity of nation states and local communities as necessary conditions for the proper and rational understanding of citizenship.”18 This is on the grounds that the people are consistently in quest for cooperating with the social networks of which they structure a section. This animates a cycle of character development through which people can embrace moral standards and for the protection of their character and good standards, they are consistently dynamic in saving their customary social networks. Conversely to the liberal endeavours of organizing freedom over clique and advancing an origination of citizenship which tries to give a jetty to society through an extraordinary power of theoretical origination of rights over the acknowledgment of duties, the communitarian vision of citizenship focuses on the significance of adjusting freedom with club, and rights with duties. It imagines communitarian origination of citizenship as an aggregate undertaking, obligation based, collective and inserted in specific conventions. 18 Delanty (2002). 15 CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS Contemporary popularity-based states have generally developed out of liberal transformation with a thought of opportunity and strengthening for the individuals. The possibility of opportunity and strengthening in equitable states has been educated by a thought of 'rights' which are ensured by the state, made sure about inside a citizenship structure, shielded from the state infringement, and even applied against the state. This thought has in any case to a great extent been characterized inside the theoretical jargon of universalism-of equivalent good worth, of equivalent citizenship status, and of equivalent insurance of the law, by the cuttingedge political hypothesis. All-inclusiveness of law and equivalent good worth under the watchful eye of the law were compared inside the possibility of citizenship for all which in spite of the fact that suggests a thought of all-inclusiveness of citizenship however doesn't guarantee the equivalent effect of law on all the people. The possibility of non-partisanship that is implanted in the universalist thought of citizenship not just compels the equivalent exercise of citizenship rights however even denies the chances of equivalent cooperation in the political cycles to the minority networks against whom the force structures like religion, nationality, language, and station may viably work. Article 15 of the “Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) says Everyone has the right to a nationality “and that no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality. Most articles of the UDHR are considered customary international human rights law. The right to citizenship/nationality is clearly stated.”19 “A key weakness of the right to citizenship is that Article 15 is stated in terms of the rights of individuals without indicating what state is responsible for implementing the right. Protection of most human rights is, quite logically, the responsibility of the state in which individuals reside, or the state that is violating the right. When a person is detained arbitrarily, it is usually clear what state is detaining her. Yet states generally do not give citizenship to individuals just because they are residents, or even because they are born there, and international law doesn’t require them to. So, the question of which state is violating the right of any particular stateless 19 A.15 of UDHR 16 person and by implication, responsible for giving her citizenship isn’t clear from the Universal Declaration. Another basic problem is that the right to nationality is not well-defined in international law, and not intuitively understood. In practice, it depends on the context and country. In absolute monarchies, all may be citizens but no one has the right to political participation. In other countries, which have no national id cards, citizens and non-citizens are indistinguishable by documentation. In contrast, the right to freedom from arbitrary detention is much easier to intuitively understand, plus there is lots of international law and jurisprudence, developed over decades, defining it. The lack of a clear definition of citizenship means that it is hard to separate the idea of a right to citizenship/nationality in the abstract from state recognition of that citizenship in practice. If a person is tortured, we don’t believe that he has no right not to be tortured, but that his right not to be tortured is being violated. But because the right to citizenship is so poorly defined in law that it’s hard to say when someone has it; thus, when that person is denied or deprived of citizenship, or proof of citizenship, by a state, the victim herself may conclude that she is stateless, rather than that her right to citizenship has violated. But many of the world’s stateless people would not be stateless at all if their country’s laws were non-discriminatory or properly implemented. Although many of the rights contained in the Universal Declaration have been elaborated into binding international human rights instruments, some with treaty bodies to interpret them, international law has made little progress in developing the right to citizenship/nationality relative to other rights. This is understandable if one considers that for decades, human rights were so imperfectly defined and poorly respected that most people didn’t have their rights whether they were citizens or not. Despite these weaknesses, international human rights law does constrain states in granting and withholding citizenship in some ways. For example, international antidiscrimination norms make it clear that denying citizenship to individuals on the basis of their gender, ethnicity, religion or other status is impermissible. But in practice, lots of citizenship laws discriminate in violation of these norms. As the international human rights regime has grown stronger and stronger and the culture of respecting rights has grown, lack of citizenship has become one of the few grounds upon which states can deny individuals their rights and not be called to account. When violating or failing to protect the rights of non-citizens, states may claim that they do respect human rights, but are 17 simply not responsible for non-citizens who live within their borders. To a certain extent, they are right, it is permissible to make distinctions between the rights of citizens and the rights of non-citizens. But many of the world’s non-citizens may in fact be citizens whose right to citizenship is being violated by not being recognized by their state. Because the right to citizenship is poorly defined, we should be suspicious of states’ claims as to who the noncitizens are.” 18 BIBLIOGRAPHY JOURNAL ARTICLES 1. Karen Knop, Citizenship, Public and Private, Law and Contemporary Problems, Summer, 2008, Vol. 71, No. 3, Transdisciplinary Conflict of Laws, 309-341, (2013) Available at: http://www.jstor.com/stable/27654675 2. Linda Bosniak, THE CITIZEN AND THE ALIEN: Dilemmas of Contemporary Membership 23-26,34-35 (2006) 3. Peter J. Spiro. “A NEW INTERNATIONAL LAW OF CITIZENSHIP” The American Journal of International Law, vol. 105, no. 4, 694–746 (2011) 4. Alfred M. Boll, Multiple Nationality and International Law: DUAL CITIZENSHIP IN EUROPE: FROM NATIONHOOD TO SOCIETAL INTEGRATION 171, 174 (2007) 5. Kochenov, on the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) on EU citizenship rights referring to the cases of Rottmann (Case C-135/08, ECLI:EU:C:2010:104 (2011) BOOKS 1. Gregory Treverton, Dividing Divided States. University of Pennsylvania Press, (2014) Available at: www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt6wr97c 2. Burgett, Bruce, and Glenn Hendler, Keywords for American Cultural Studies, Second Edition. 2nd ed., NYU Press, (2014) Available at: www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1287j69 3. Gabriel Starke, Starke’s international law, Editor by Shearer, London, Butter worth’s, 309, (1994) INTERNET SOURCES 1. Citizenship and Nationality, Available at: https://ijrcenter.org/thematic-researchguides/nationality-citizenship/ 2. https://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/166346/10/10_chapter_3.pdf 3. https://blog.ipleaders.in/nationality-under-international-law-all-you-need-to-know-about/ 4. https://ijrcenter.org/thematic-research-guides/nationality-citizenship/ 5. https://africanarguments.org/2009/10/12/the-right-to-citizenship-under-international-law/ 19