A chamber of the German Constitutional Court decided a case concerned with access to German citizenship for a descendant of a Jewish German who had been stripped of his German citizenship by the Nazis. The chamber decision finds that a long established, narrow naturalisation practice vis-à-vis the offspring of those who have been robbed their German nationality by the Nazis is unconstitutional.
A European Union citizen by birth and nationality has found herself stateless at the request of the Republic of Austria.
The case C-118/20 JY v. Wiener Landesregierung, concerning the revocation of a guarantee of the grant of Austrian nationality, is more than a case on loss of EU citizenship. It is the first case where the CJEU will have to rule on the acquisition of EU citizenship.
Our new study shows that, as of January 2020, all but two of the 28 Member States grant citizenship to children born in the State who would otherwise be stateless, and that such provision has expanded slightly. Yet only eleven Member States grant such children citizenship unconditionally and automatically.
When it comes to investment migration, the pandemic has underscored the key differences between citizenship by investment and residence by investment, so often treated together – even conflated – in the literature, as well as the distinction between citizenship and mere passports. It also raises questions about how supply and demand will transform in this unusual market. What does the pandemic mean for millionaire mobility through investment migration?
There is no such thing as a European code regulating access to (and loss of) European citizenship. Whoever wants to know how to gain or lose EU citizenship, has to carefully read through the legislation of 27 different EU Member States. The fact that the number of Member States recently decreased by one is of little help.
Will the sale of passports die out as a result of decreased mobility and new economic realities, or will the industry successfully thrive on the virus, advertising ‘pandemic’ passports as risk insurance?
Short of full deglobalisation and sustained lockdown, citizenship is likely to remain a valuable asset at the same time that states are unlikely to see serious new costs in pre-COVID citizenship practices. The pandemic is unlikely to reverse a long progression towards state acceptance of and individual interests in dual citizenship.
Given current political realities and Israel’s emphasis on having a Jewish majority, any obligation to grant citizenship to Palestinians in the West Bank will be ignored. Furthermore, given the stratification of Israeli citizenship, grant of citizenship that does not guarantee equality will not satisfy the right to self-determination of Palestinians.
Ariel Zemach suggests that Israel is required, under IHRL, to grant citizenship to residents of territories of the West Bank that were annexed to Israel. I would like to highlight three difficulties that arise from this argument: its contribution to the entrenchment of the settlements as a permanent reality, its dire implications for self-determination, in the substantive sense, of the Palestinian people, and its presumption that the granting of citizenship would result in adhering to IHRL obligations, in particular with respect to equality, towards Palestinian citizens of Israel.
