414 L. van Waas, S. Jaghai 1 Introduction Under the headline ‘World’s Top Nationalities Revealed’, Forbes magazine reported that a global index declared France to have the ‘best’ nationality on offer in the world in 2018, in terms of ‘quality of life and opportunity’.1 The index is fed by quantitative data that aims to expose what it calls the internal and external quality of a particular nationality—across categories such as economic prosperity, peace and security (internal), and the scope of visa-free travel (external).2 This ranking of nationalities, and the citizenship-by-investment schemes is being used to promote and remind us of the pervasiveness of global inequality. Although the contemporary international legal order is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all states, rendering the world’s nationalities formally equal, in practice there is what Shachar calls an ‘inequality of actual life chances attached to citizenship in specific political communities’.3 Even in an era of human rights, which recognise ‘the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family’,4 this remains the reality. It matters, not just whether you have a nationality,5 but which nationality that is. While Shachar problematises these ‘global-distributive implications’ of citizenship and its attendant rules in his compelling monograph The Birthright Lottery, this article explores another plane of inequality within modern citizenship regimes that has received little attention to date: the unequal nationality status of different members of the same political community. The concept of nationality—or citizenship6—refers to the legal bond between a person and a state,7 that ‘connotes full membership’.8 In liberal democracies, citizenship brings with it the often constitutionally guaranteed promise of equality of rights (and duties) within that community.9 Nowhere within this understanding of nationality is there anything to suggest that the nature of the legal bond varies among citizens of the same community, i.e. that some citizens are more equal than others. Yet, in the practice of states, not 1 Southan (2018). The article is reporting on the 2017 edition of the Quality of Nationality Index, maintained by Henley & Partners—a private consulting firm that advises high wealth individuals on how to improve their own opportunity through ‘citizenship planning’. 2 A description of the methodology behind the Index is available at: https​://www.natio​nalit​yinde​x.com/ metho​dolog​y (accessed 20 July 2018). 3 Shachar (2009), p. 9. Shachar goes on to expose how ‘in such a world, citizenship laws assigning political membership by birthright play a crucial role in the distribution of basic social conditions and life opportunities on a global scale’, acting as a means of ‘sustaining the privilege of inherited entitlement’. Ibid., p. 3. 4 Preamble, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948. 5 The disadvantage generated by statelessness is widely documented, in both scholarly research and studies by the UN and civil society, as well as artists. See, for instance, Belton (2017), Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion (2017), Constantine (2015), UN Human Rights Council (2015), UNHCR (2014), Blitz and Lynch (2009). 6 The terms nationality and citizenship are used interchangeably here, as they are in much of the legal literature on this topic. See further Edwards (2014), pp. 13–14. 7 Nottenbohm case (1955), ICJ Reports 1955, p. 4. 8 Weis (1979), p. 4. 9 See for constitutional provisions on equality the Constitute Project, available at: https​://www.const​itute​ proje​ct.org/ (accessed 20 July 2018). 123