Examining citizenship law in Europe and the Americas
Researchers on the project NAMEST-STATDUONAT (A comparative North American-European study on two anomalies to the traditional Westphalian nation state model: Statelessness and dual nationality) examined citizenship in 35 western hemisphere countries. The work sheds light on state practices related to the acquisition and loss of nationality, an important topic that is increasingly becoming a policy concern in the EU. The comparative study considered legislative and other materials from the Library of Congress in Washington, DC, a major university in Mexico City, and from institutes in the Caribbean and Latin America. This helped map the different grounds for the acquisition and loss of citizenship and led to the publication of 'Nationality law in the western hemisphere: A study on grounds for acquisition and loss of citizenship in the Americas and the Caribbean'. Country experts were recruited during travel for research and work in the Caribbean and Latin America. Analyses and reports reveal that research on citizenship law is a neglected field of study in the Americas. NAMEST-STATDUONAT coordinated and supervised 38 reports that, among other topics, focus on discrepancies between the wording of citizenship laws and national practice and implementation. These are available on a dedicated EUDO CITIZENSHIP web page and can be used to compare Europe with the Americas. The EUDO Observatory is an online expert network on matters of citizenship. The final project year focused on studying citizenship law from a more international and normative perspective. This led to the co-authored textbook 'International standards on nationality law: Texts, cases and materials'. A second priority area was dedicated to attracting new funding for continued work on globalising the area of citizenship studies law. This successfully resulted in the ongoing follow-up project 'Towards global nationality studies', which will focus on Asia and to a lesser extent on Africa and the Middle East. Project outcomes have contributed to the academic and policy-oriented debate on the future role of the EU in matters of nationality law. The (Latin) American perspective is relevant for migrants living in Europe as well as Europeans migrating to the Americas.
Keywords
Nationality law, migration policy, dual nationality, statelessness, NAMEST-STATDUONAT, citizenship
