EXPLORING ATYPICAL CITIZENSHIP DEPRIVATION
AND SPILLOVER EFFECTS IN THE CONTESTED
TAIWANESE CITIZENSHIP
JING-HAN CHEN*
Taiwan, an island nation with an ambiguous international status, has one of the most contested
citizenship regimes in the world. This paper explores the perspectives of Taiwanese people on their
precarious citizenship: a topic previously underexplored. The central argument posits that
mis-recognition of Taiwanese citizenship by foreign authorities amounts to a denial of citizenship:
a form of atypical citizenship deprivation that lacks human rights safeguards. Two recent
European Court of Human Rights (‘ECtHR’) cases illustrate these points: Liu and Others v
Norway, and Liu v Poland. In exploring these cases, this paper discusses the spillover effect of
how issues of citizenship and sovereignty become crucial in international legal disputes, even when
not explicitly related to the primary legal issues of the case in question. These reflections on liminal
Taiwanese citizenship illuminate broader concerns of contested citizenship in the contemporary
international community.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I
II
III
IV
V
*
Introduction ........................................................................................................... 102
Contestation of Taiwanese Statehood and Citizenship ......................................... 104
A Taiwan’s Statehood: Context and Debates ............................................... 104
B Sovereignty’s Influence on Citizenship .................................................... 107
The Genuine Link Theory, Predominant Nationality, and Taiwanese Citizenship
............................................................................................................................... 109
Taiwanese Citizenship in the International Setting: Right to Taiwanese Identity 113
A Denial of Taiwanese Citizenship: An Analysis of Liu and Others v Norway
................................................................................................................... 114
1
Background of Liu and Others v Norway..................................... 115
2
Liu and Others v Norway in the ECtHR....................................... 116
3
Genuine link between Liu and Others v Norway and Atypical
Citizenship Deprivation ................................................................ 119
B From Citizenship to Other Rights: An Analysis of Liu v Poland ............. 120
1
Liu v Poland in the ECtHR ........................................................... 120
2
Challenges to Sovereignty: The Role of Extradition .................... 121
3
Spillover Effects of Contestation on Taiwanese Sovereignty and
Citizenship .................................................................................... 122
C Evaluating ECtHR decisions in Liu and Others v Norway and Liu v Poland
................................................................................................................... 123
Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 124
Jing-Han Chen is a legal scholar and socio-legal researcher whose work examines how law
structures precarity, belonging, and identity in contexts of contested sovereignty. She is a tutor
at the University of Edinburgh, where she teaches International Law and International Private
Law. She holds a PhD in Law from the University of Edinburgh, where her thesis, Contested
Citizenship and Statelessness in Question, received the PhD Thesis Prize from the Taiwan
Society of International Law in 2023. Contact: jchen13@ed.ac.uk
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