Kick-off contribution Weaponised Citizenship: Should international law restrict oppressive nationality attribution? Neha Jain* Citizenship has been described by Rogers Brubaker as ‘an international filing system, a mechanism for allocating persons to states’,1 but if so, this filing system has few centrally co-ordinated rules at the international level. And even the sparse international legal architecture that exists mostly assumes that the problem to be addressed is not the attribution of citizenship but rather its absence, i.e. statelessness. In other words, citizenship is considered an aspirational status that entitles its holder to a set of rights that are to be secured and perfected, including through the cautious deployment of international law instruments and institutions relating to human rights.2 But what when citizenship, and its international counterpart, nationality, begins to be wielded not as a shield that protects the dignity and personhood of its bearer but rather as a sword that states can command to harm or to oppress? Should international law continue to refrain from intervening in a status the attribution of which is regarded as a sovereign prerogative? This essay argues that international law should do more in situations of oppressive nationality. Nationality attribution can be oppressive for both individuals and states. In the former case, it serves to denude an individual of rights they would have enjoyed but for the attribution. In the latter situation, it functions as a weapon to threaten or destabilise vital interests of other states. Zombie citizenship Citizenship, as Jo Shaw reminds us, is a bundle of rights and obligations.3 However, the formal equality signalled by the status of citizenship may conceal deeply unequal substantive rights, duties, and experiences of belonging. In some cases, the content of the citizenship may be hollowed out to such an extent that it resembles less a political, social, or cultural relationship between the individual and the state that entails a series of mutual rights and duties, and more a form of zombie citizenship. One could argue that with the rise of a globally mobile population that often retains only the most tenuous links with the state of their nationality, this expectation of mutuality between the state and its citizenry has in any case been eroded over time. What is more, the international legal architecture concerning nationality attribution does not seek to peer into the quality of the citizenship conferred on the individual but rather limits itself to requiring that the state’s ascription of nationality is exercised in conformity with international law, of which there is precious little. Indeed, this wide margin of discretion granted to the state is integral to the distinction between “citizenship” as a concept of domestic law and “nationality”, which is an international legal concept.4 There have nonetheless been instances where international law has sought to dig deeper. As Peter Spiro recounts,5 formal as well as informal norms concerning nationality ascription have been developed in different sites of international dispute resolution, emerging mainly in the context of naturalisation rather than citizenship allocation at birth. The first of these emphasise the requirement of individual consent whereby nationality acquisition must be voluntary and cannot be imposed on the individual against their will. The second prohibits states from attributing nationality willy-nilly to individuals with whom they have no connection through the requirement of a “genuine link” between the state and the individual in order for states to be able to exercise diplomatic protection on behalf of the individual. * 1 2 3 4 5 European University Institute and Northwestern Pritzer School of Law Brubaker R. (1992), Citizenship and Nationhood in France and Germany, Harvard University Press (hereinafter ‘Brubaker 1992’). Spiro P. (2017), ‘Citizenship Overrreach’, Michigan Journal of International Law 38(2) 167-191 (hereinafter ‘Spiro 2017’). Shaw J. (2020), The People in Question: Citizens and Constitutions in Uncertain Times, Bristol University Press. Id. Spiro 2017.