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
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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.”
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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/
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