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Ius Soli: a French constitutional principle?

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Since 2008, the archives of the Conseil constitutionnel (the French constitutional court) must be disclosed after a period of twenty-five years. The centre-piece of these archives is the verbatim of the judges’ deliberation. The recent release of the deliberations of the major decision of 20 July 1993 shows new aspects about nationality law in France. Notably, some of these (no longer) secret discussions of the judges suggest that ius soli, while currently only included in ordinary law, could also become an unwritten constitutional principle. Read More …

The revival of denaturalisation under the Trump administration

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In 1967, the United States Supreme Court put an end to the U.S. government’s aggressive denaturalisation campaigns, declaring in Afroyim v. Rusk that denaturalisation for any reason other than fraud or mistake violated the U.S. Constitution. More than fifty years later, the Trump administration has resurrected denaturalisation by broadly defining fraud and mistake, as well as by seeking to remove citizenship through the civil system, under which the target has few procedural protections. Read More …

What’s in the EC’s report on investor citizenship?

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On 23 January, the European Commission published its long-awaited Report on Investor Citizenship Schemes. The report is accompanied by a Commission Staff Working Document, which provides definitions of investor residence and citizenship programmes, as well as an overview of policies applicable across the 28 European Union (EU) Member States. On the basis of an empirical study of investor citizenship and residence schemes in the EU, the report calls for due regard of EU law in national citizenship policies, especially regarding the link between residence and physical presence, common standards for security checks, and enhanced oversight of intermediaries involved in acquisition of citizenship and residence by investment. Read More …

No longer the ‘last man standing’: Norway decides to allow dual citizenship

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On December 6 2018, the Norwegian Parliament decided to allow dual citizenship, bringing the country back in line with its Nordic neighbors. The decision breaks with the historical tradition of singular citizenship, but was already proposed by the current conservative Government in its political platform in 2017. The fact that it was a conservative government that proposed the amendment of the Nationality law is testament to a changing rationale for the introduction of dual citizenship in the Nordic region, where retainment of citizenship for emigrants and national security issues are key arguments. The amendment is expected to enter into force in 2020. Read More …

Citizenship in Africa: The Law of Belonging

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The content of citizenship laws can be politically controversial in any country. African states, whose borders were, for the most part, arbitrarily created at the stroke of a pen in Berlin in 1885, have particular challenges. The 1964 decision of the newly formed Organisation of African Unity to respect those borders committed the continent to the task of moulding the colonial units into legitimate political communities. Read More …

Citizens’ Rights in the UK-EU Withdrawal Agreement: Ossifying EU citizenship as a juridical status?

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On Sunday 25th November 2018, the European Council gave its political blessing to the draft of the Withdrawal Agreement whereby the United Kingdom will leave the European Union. From the outset of negotiations, the European Council identified protecting the rights of UK nationals in EU Member States and EU nationals in the United Kingdom as a priority in its guidelines. These efforts have culminated in Part II of the Agreement. This post will provide a brief overview of the substance of these provisions, and the mechanisms that have been established to ensure their enforcement. Read More …

In Australia, the latest citizenship-stripping plan risks statelessness, indefinite detention and constitutional challenge

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This week, Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton announced the federal government’s intention to introduce changes to Australia’s citizenship-stripping laws. The proposed changes would likely make Australia’s regime for citizenship-stripping the most expansive in the world. I’ll outline how the proposal would change the current law, and analyse its key elements. Read More …

Inclusion or conflicts of loyalty? 15 years of dual citizenship in Finland

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Finland accepted multiple citizenship with a broad consensus across the political parties in 2003. However, it was not until the autumn of 2014 that the issue of dual citizenship reached public consciousness when President of the Republic highlighted the need for a comparative review of multiple citizenship and its conditions in different countries. This request came around the same time as Russia introduced new legislation on the compulsory registration of foreign citizenships and the Ukraine crisis had intensified in the spring and summer of 2014. Read More …

Brazil: the Supreme Electoral Court wiped out voters’ registrations

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On October 7, 3.3 million voters received an unwelcome surprise on Election Day in Brazil. They were, in fact, no longer voters. Roughly half of the country’s municipalities had moved to compulsory biometric identification for this election, which required voters to go to the Electoral Court in their region and register their fingerprints.

Voter registration was a big flashpoint in the U.S., possibly affecting the turnout of certain segments of the population disproportionately. Might it have had an effect on the Brazilian election as well? After all, any possible effect would not have been captured by polls, since voters with cancelled registration would likely have not known and responded to polls as likely voters. This would mean that our pre-electoral predictions would have been off-base if there truly was an influence. Read More …

How the EU Mitigates a Fundamental Democratic Deficit of European Nation-States

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The European Union, many believe, has a democratic deficit. The sovereign nation-state is seen as democratically superior. Even more, it is often argued that the EU undermines the functioning of national democracies, compounding this alleged democratic deficit.

In our article we show that when it comes to the electoral inclusion of immigrants, nation states suffer from a democratic deficit and the EU plays a democracy-enhancing role. European democracies are much more exclusive than they should be according to normative standards derived from democratic theory. The EU has been key to mitigating the exclusiveness of democracies. By requiring its member states to enfranchise non-national EU citizens on the local level, it pushes one of the currently most relevant “frontiers of democracy” in the right direction. Read More …