Global Citizenship Law: International Migration and Constitutional Identity

Project Information

GlobalCitizenshipLaw

Grant agreement ID: 716350

DOI

10.3030/716350

Project closed

EC signature date 19 December 2016

Start date 1 March 2017

End date 31 August 2022

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)

Total cost

€ 1 499 588,00

EU contribution

€ 1 499 588,00

Coordinated by

EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE
Italy

Periodic Reporting for period 4 - GlobalCitizenshipLaw (Global Citizenship Law: International Migration and Constitutional Identity)

Reporting period: 2021-09-01 to 2022-08-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Problem addressed: Traditionally, international law has not regulated citizenship policy. The current legal structure includes a symbolic statement of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), that “Everyone has the right to a nationality.” It also includes laws protecting refugees (1951) and a general prohibition of racial discrimination (1965). But, to date, the topic of citizenship remains the last stronghold of national sovereignty. The current situation (a) leads to human rights violations; and (b) leaves nation-states with no clear rules of how to restrict admission without breaching human rights.
Important: Decisions on inclusion and exclusion are among the most important for any political community. The law of citizenship reflects on three fundamental issues: [1] defining the "We"—who "we" are, and what kind of community "we" want to be; [2] setting criteria for identifying the desired "They"—who is, in the state's view, a “good citizen”; and [3] finding the social core to which "they" should subscribe to become part of "us." Very topics are so central for political communities. The outcome may serve as a basis for future reform in international law, EU law, and national systems.
Objectives: The project seeks to set the agenda for a new subfield of international law—called “international citizenship law”—that would govern citizenship acquisition and loss. It asks what are/should be the international legal standards for acquisition and loss of citizenship? It has five goals: [1] to investigate the history of citizenship law and what it can teach us about 21st-century challenges; [2] to identify the most recent international legal standards concerning citizenship law; [3] to set out the theoretical foundations and the justifications for the establishment of IC-LAW; [4] to analyze the normative and structural implications derived from an IC-LAW approach for a future citizenship policy; and [5] to explore the interrelationship between IC-LAW, immigration policy, and constitutional identity.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

IC-LAW was established in March 2017. The group is split between the WZB Berlin Social Science Center and the European University Institute. It includes a PI (part-time, 73%), 2 Ph.D. students (65%), 5 postdoctoral researchers (varying percentage), and a non-paid affiliated scholar (nine people). It is a multinational and multidisciplinary team, complemented by visiting scholars, who occasionally join for knowledge transfer, and an advisory board of ten scholars, who assist in guiding the research team.
In terms of publications, the group has already produced 13 peer-reviewed journal articles (e.g. American Journal of International Law, Harvard Human Rights Journal); 2 articles in non-peer-reviewed journals; 20 essays (volume chapters, short pieces in collections, book reviews); 1 edited volume (Routledge); and 5 policy papers. IC-LAW also has two contracts with Cambridge University Press—for an edited volume and a book monograph (to be published in 2023)—and a Special Issue of Citizenship Studies on “Digital Citizenship in the Post-pandemic Urban Realm” (2022). Other publications are under review or in preparation, including a book monograph (“Human Metrics”) and an edited volume (“Drawing Boundaries”). In terms of academic activities, IC-LAW organized 21 international conferences, and its members provided 86 lectures in conferences worldwide. In terms of international cooperation: IC-LAW initiated global cooperation, including a 2-year workshop series with Harvard, MPI for the Study of Religious, & The New School (“Migration, Citizenship, Democracy”), an annual junior faculty forum (“WZB-EUI-LSE Junior Faculty Forum for Public Law”), and a new “Transnational Network on Cities, Mobility, and Citizenship” (about 20 participating institutions).

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The project has five significant signs of progress beyond expected results:
Genealogy of citizenship: The group has assembled a team of distinguished scholars, mostly historians, to identify historical turning-moments (e.g. critical junctures, phases, events, cases, texts) that have profoundly shaped the development of the boundaries of citizenship and its contemporary meanings. 15 turning moments have been identified thus far: (1-2) Urban and municipal citizenship in the ancient world: Classical Athens and the Roman Empire, (3) Christian legacy and influence; (4) Medieval and early modern citizenship in European communes; (5) Feudal citizenship; (6-7) Modern Empires and the colonial world; (8) The French Revolution; (9) Constitutionalizing citizenship; (10) Global wars; (11] Gender equality; (12) Citizenship in the post-colonial states; (13) Internationalization of citizenship law; (14) Europeanization of citizenship; (15) The emergence of a “digital citizenship.” The study shows how different societies shaped the institution of citizenship and its boundaries by developing inclusion and exclusion rules and practices.
The future of citizenship: The original proposal asked to learn about contemporary challenges of citizenship by looking at the past—historical perspectives. During the research, it has become evident that one can also learn about contemporary citizenship challenges by looking at the future— such as challenges and opportunities brought about by emerging technologies. Thus, IC-LAW has established a new project, CitTech, which evaluates the changes brought about by new technologies to citizenship values and institutions. Topics included, e.g. cybernetic, algorithmic, cloud, and genetic citizenship.
Global Compact of Citizenship: IC-LAW has conducted several studies whose goal, eventually, is to become the world’s first proposal for a Global Compact on Citizenship. Empirically, it has constructed a global database on conditions for citizenship acquisition and loss and indexing different forms of discrimination on selected countries; conceptually, IC-LAW is examining citizenship narratives on national, subnational, and supranational levels; normatively, IC-LAW is developing a guiding principle for acquisition & loss of citizenship, a revised version of the genuine link principle in international law.
Urban citizenship: In the course of the research, it has become clear that subnational categories of citizenship—in particular, the notion of urban citizenship in mega-cities—is a central subject for any future development of international citizenship law. In late 2018, IC-LAW jointly established the “Transnational Platform on Cities, Migration, and Citizenship” with 20 participating institutions, academic and think-tank, from all over the world (e.g. NYC, Johannesburg, Melbourne, Toronto, Istanbul, Nairobi, London). Research topics included digital citizenship in megacities, climate migration in cities, mobility and urban governance, and new narratives repository on cities and mobility.
Majorities, minorities, and nationhood: In April 2019, IC-LAW co-hosted a conference on majority and minority rights, a topic which is at the core of citizenship tensions. It seeks to understand intercultural tensions between majority and minority groups, the expressions of these tensions, the moral and legal challenges they pose to theories of democracy and citizenship and justice. Thus far, the research has yielded an edited volume, “Majorities, Minorities, and the Future of Nationhood” (Cambridge University Press), with 12 chapters written by some of the most distinguished researchers in the field.

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