4 THE EVOLUTION OF NATIONALITY DEPRIVATION SINCE 2000 Since the terrorist attacks of 9/11 in the United States, a wide range of policy measures have been adopted by states globally to fight the ‘war on terrorism’. Further efforts to bolster (inter) national security were prompted by subsequent attacks and bombings – including in London, Madrid, Brussels, Paris and Berlin – as well as the rise and then fall of ISIS in Syria and Iraq. The “legislative fever”1 with which numerous governments have responded to contemporary terrorism threats has included the adoption or expansion of nationality deprivation powers. Citizenship has thereby become another policy area to be impacted by the evolution of “exceptionalist” counter-terrorism measures.2 This section of the report maps out the global trends emerging since 9/11. It looks more closely at the following questions: In which countries is deprivation for disloyalty not possible and which countries have reeled in their powers (by narrowing the grounds on which they can deprive nationality or abandoning them altogether)? Where has legislation remained unchanged? And finally, where has the power to deprive citizens of their nationality been extended or newly introduced, and how have these deprivation powers been used in practice? The analysis again covers 190 countries and focuses in on what legislative changes have occurred specifically relating to disloyalty as a ground for deprivation of nationality since the year 2000. By comparing the legislation in force on 1 January 2000 and 1 January 2022, it offers an insight into the main longitudinal trends during this period. As shown in Figure 4.1, the overall picture is mixed, although a clear majority of states have not amended their legislation. It should be noted that by measuring only two moments in time, the analysis does not capture reforms that came into effect after 2000 but were repealed again before 2022 – an example of which is offered through the case study of Canada in Section 4.2. Nor does the discussion provide a fully itinerated account of each individual change that states made to their legislation during this period. In reality, numerous states made successive amendments, adding new language incrementally – as illustrated by the case studies of the United Kingdom in Section 2.2 and the Netherlands in Section 4.4. 4.1. WHICH COUNTRIES DO NOT PROVIDE FOR DEPRIVATION FOR ‘DISLOYALTY’? On 1 January 2000, there were 67 countries without provisions in their law enabling deprivation of nationality for disloyalty. By 1 January 2020, this number had dropped to 61, and as of 1 January 2022, it had fallen further to 56 – as shown in Figure 4.1. Notwithstanding this general trend, the fact that 30% of the countries do not provide for citizenship stripping for disloyalty shows that it is by no means a universally accepted practice. Breaking down the picture by region, significant disparities become evident. As shown in Figure 4.2, The Americas is the region where deprivation powers relating to disloyalty are least prevalent – 43% do not make provision for this in their legislation. In Europe and the Asia Pacific region, approximately a third of countries have no deprivation powers relating to disloyalty in place. In Africa, the proportion of countries without such powers falls to one in five; while in the MENA region there is only one country (out of 18 analysed) that does not provide for nationality deprivation for disloyalty. In some countries, the absence of disloyalty or other security-related loss grounds can be explained by the fact that nationals are constitutionally protected against the (involuntary) loss of nationality – in particular in the Americas and in Europe. For example, Article 53 of the 1993 Constitution of Peru states that “Peruvian nationality is not lost, except by express renunciation before a Peruvian authority”. As a consequence, Peruvian nationality cannot be lost on security-related grounds either. Similar provisions are in place, for example, in the Constitutions of Costa Rica,3 Panama,4 and Paraguay;5 but also European countries like Croatia,6 the Czech Republic,7 Poland,8 and Slovakia9 have similar constitutional provisions in place. Such constitutional protections prevent states from instrumentalising nationality for policy aims. FIG 4.1 COUNTRIES WITHOUT NATIONALITY DEPRIVATION FOR DISLOYALTY As of 1 January 2022 56 1 January 2022 67 1 January 2000 Argentina Armenia Bolivia Burundi Cambodia Canada Cabo Verde Chile China Democratic Republic of the Congo Costa Rica Croatia Cuba Czech Republic Ecuador Eswatini Ethiopia Georgia Guatemala Hungary Iceland Iran Japan Liberia Luxembourg Mexico Micronesia Mongolia Mozambique Nepal North Korea North Macedonia Palau Panama Papua New Guinea Paraguay Peru Poland Portugal Russia Serbia Slovakia South Africa Spain Sri Lanka Suriname Sweden Taiwan Tajikistan Trinidad and Tobago Turkmenistan Tuvalu Ukraine Uruguay Vanuatu Zambia 23