44 Melbourne University Law Review [Vol 41(2):Adv they are said to pursue. In light of this, the symbolic rationale drawn upon to support the laws is woefully inadequate. IV C O N C LU S I O N Citizenship is often regarded as the most fundamental of human rights. In addition to signifying formal membership of a national community, it is often a gateway to a host of basic entitlements, including political rights, mobility rights and rights to consular assistance. It is a concept with a strong rhetorical dimension in forging understandings of what it is to belong to a community and in shaping a country’s sense of its own identity. It is for such reasons that nations have often exercised caution in respect of laws that enable people to have their citizenship revoked. Much has changed since the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. Within short succession, the UK, Canada and Australia introduced significant new citizenship stripping laws, creating a modern framework for banishing individuals seen to be a risk to public safety and the common good. The laws introduced in the three countries were striking in a number of respects. Courts were afforded little or no role in determining whether a person should be deprived of their citizenship. Instead, extraordinary powers have been conferred upon the executive to determine the status of the person in a way that will impact upon the person’s fundamental human rights, including their right to vote, their entitlement to the protection of the state, and their capacity to enter and exit the nation. The extreme breadth of the recent denationalisation laws threatens fundamental human rights and the rule of law. In light of these effects, the laws should be supported by strong and cogent justifications. Unfortunately, our analysis shows that any justifications invoked to support these laws ring hollow in light of the laws’ experience post-enactment. The UK, Canada and Australia all justified their expanded denationalisation laws via both a symbolic rationale, which cast citizenship as conditional upon allegiant behaviour, and a security rationale, which asserted that citizenship deprivation is a necessary part of a national security toolkit. Our analysis suggests that the security rationale has not been well served by the laws in any of the three countries surveyed. At the time of their introduction and thereafter, these laws have, at best, added little to other national security laws and, at worst, actually functioned to undermine security, particularly on a global scale. The symbolic rationale for the laws has been better served: the laws enacted in each country achieved the symbolic effect of recasting citizenship as a privilege that citizens deserve to be stripped of if they demonstrate disloyalty or pose Advance Copy