CRISIS OF CITIZENSHIP
The world is witnessing a crisis of citizenship. Security of
citizenship was meant to be a settled debate. But there has been
a resurfacing of statelessness and other instances of loss of
citizenship across the world.2 States in some cases have resorted
to revocation of citizenship. They have also taken measures that
dilute the security of citizenship status.3 India is no exception.
Particularly over the last few years, the Indian state has proposed
or implemented policy measures that have a bearing on the
citizenship of many of its residents. The country also has
numerous communities that are stateless. Yet it does not have a
legally informed policy on the issue. This context demands a
clear statement on the content of the Indian state’s legal
obligations under international law vis-à-vis citizenship both
towards its own citizens and the individuals who are stateless.
The foundation of these obligations is Article 15 of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights (‘UDHR’) that proclaims every
individual’s right to a nationality. The right mandates that
individuals shall not be deprived of their nationality nor denied
the right to change nationality. It recognises the fundamental
character of political belonging. It is – in Hannah Arendt’s oftquoted and iconic characterisation – the right to have rights. As
Arendt had pointed out, membership in political communities is
indispensable for respecting and preserving human dignity and
agency. Individuals without protected political membership are
bound to be rendered voiceless and seriously vulnerable to
violence. International law has appreciated this over the last
many decades. The first international convention on statelessness
2 Guy S Goodwin-Gill, ‘Statelessness is back (not that it ever went away…)’ (EJIL: Talk!, 12 September
2019) <https://www.ejiltalk.org/statelessness-is-back-not-that-it-ever-went-away/> accessed 24 May
2020. See also Michelle Foster and Hélène Lambert, ‘Statelessness as a Human Rights Issue: A
Concept Whose Time Has Come’ (2016) 28(4) International Journal of Refugee Law 564.
3 See Open Society Justice Initiative, ‘Unmaking Americans’ <https://www.justiceinitiative.org/
publications/unmaking-americans> accessed 16 May 2020; Émilien Fargues and Elke Winter,
‘Conditional membership: what revocation does to citizenship’ (2019) 23(4) Citizenship Studies 295;
Laura van Waas, ‘Foreign Fighters and the Deprivation of Nationality: National Practices and
International Law Implications’ in Andrea de Guttry, Francesca Capone and Christophe Paulussen
(eds), Foreign Fighters under International Law and Beyond (T.M.C. Asser Press 2016).
introduction
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