1650 Jo Shaw If the effects of various measures taken to contain the pandemic or its socio-economic dimensions restrict citizenship privileges and rights, then this will once again impact more significantly upon those with weaker economic status, as well as those with the citizenships of poorer countries or of countries lacking the infrastructure or will to act protectively. Commentators have noted that some rich countries were quick to mount repatriation efforts, expending consular, financial, and medical resources in order to protect “their” nationals94 and to issue come home calls.95 This has resulted in difficulties for multiple citizenship families. For example, China was reluctant to allow its citizens married to citizens from other countries and with non-citizen children to leave China with their families and some countries—such as Canada initially, but it eventually changed its policy—have been reluctant to allow non-citizen spouses to enter, even with their citizen children for whom they are the primary caregivers. However, the majority of countries have instituted exceptions in relation to entry for permanent residents.96 Many of these scenarios raise questions of diplomacy, as well as, classic international law dilemmas about the character of nationality as a link between the state and the individual and its recognition under principles of international diplomacy via the controversial Nottebohm “genuine link” principle.97 Frédéric Mégret98 describes the general tenor of national policies as involving a romantic emphasis on nationality, and draws on Michel Foucault to suggest that this involves states taking governing to be “a ‘pastoral’ mission—including in its sacrificial function of deciding who to ‘let die’”—where the shepherd is seen to rally its “stranded” flock. He also suggests that this represents an archaic approach to the concept of “protection,” insofar as it is clear that most of the “shielding” that closing borders provided has been illusory rather than real, except in cases like New Zealand, which benefits from geographical advantages of insularity and remoteness. Of particular interest are the restrictions on mobility imposed by states in the context of the European Union, especially because of the implications of these for the supranational status of European citizenship. These restrictions need to be viewed in the context of EU law, which has both a framework providing the free movement of persons (including the free movement of labor) and non-discrimination on grounds of nationality as core principles and a framework for the elimination of internal border controls and the creation of a common approach to the management of the external border as part of the Schengen zone. This zone gathers together most EU Member States and a number of third countries. Open borders, along with the protection families—set out in Health Protection Regulations adopted specifically for COVID-19 controls. See also, on the Australian case, which has persisted much longer, Regina Jefferies & Jane McAdam, Who’s Being Allowed to Leave Australia During COVID? FOI Data Show It Is Murky and Arbitrary, UNSW L. (Jul. 5, 2021), https://www.kaldorcentre.unsw.edu.au/ publication/who%E2%80%99s-being-allowed-leave-australia-during-covid-foi-data-show-it-murky-and-arbitrary. 94 Frédéric Mégret, COVID-19 Symposium: Returning “Home”–Nationalist International Law in the Time of the Coronavirus, OPINIO JURIS (Mar. 30, 2020), http://opiniojuris.org/2020/03/30/covid-19-symposium-returning-homenationalist-international-law-in-the-time-of-the-coronavirus/. For a detailed appraisal of the measures taken by Cyprus, including repatriation, see Angeliki Konstantinidou & Daniela Vintila, Policy Measures for the Diaspora During the COVID-19 Crisis: The Case of Cyprus, 1 HELLENIC ASSOC. POL. SCI. 13 (2020). 95 See Angeliki Konstantinidou & Daniela Vintila, Policy Measures for the Diaspora During the COVID-19 Crisis: The Case of Cyprus, 1 HELLENIC ASSOC. POL. SCI. 13 (2020). See also the case of Singapore: COVID-19: 85 Singapore Citizens, Residents Repatriated from Saudi Arabia, CAN (Apr. 24, 2020), https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/saudi-arabia-covid19-singapore-residents-repatriated-12672870; Chun Han Wong, Governments Ask Their Citizens to Come Home as Coronavirus Cases Spread, WALL ST. J. (Mar. 18, 2020), https://www.wsj.com/articles/governments-ask-their-citizens-tocome-home-as-coronavirus-cases-spread-11584528789. 96 See Piccoli, supra note 66. 97 Liechtenstein v. Guatemala (Nottebohm) 1955 I.C.J. 1 (Apr. 6). 98 Frédéric Mégret, COVID-19 Symposium: Returning “Home”–Nationalist International Law in the Time of the Coronavirus, OPINIO JURIS (Mar. 30, 2020), http://opiniojuris.org/2020/03/30/covid-19-symposium-returning-homenationalist-international-law-in-the-time-of-the-coronavirus/. See also other works by Mégret emphasizing the importance of a re-orientation towards thinking about the state of nationality: Frédéric Mégret, Homeward Bound? Global Mobility and the Role of the State of Nationality During the Pandemic, 114 AJIL UNBOUND 322 (2020); Frédéric Mégret, The Changing Face of Sovereign Protection in International Law, 21(2) MELBOURNE J. INT’L L. 1 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1017/glj.2021.77 Published online by Cambridge University Press