Learning from Naturalisation Debates: The Right to an Appropriate Citizenship at Birth

Abstract

Citizenship has a political and a legal dimension. In his opening contribution, Costica Dumbrava only marginally addresses the legal dimension of citizenship, acknowledging its importance, but suggesting that it is replaceable with alternative arrangements, such as a universal status for children. But in reality much legal baggage is attached to citizenship, and one cannot simply shake it off, even if this appears normatively attractive. The whole human rights movement can be seen as an effort to separate access to legal rights from possessing a status of political membership, and this attempt has not reached its goal (yet). Citizenship is still the ‘right to have rights’. Avoidance of statelessness is therefore not just a legal whim; it is a human rights failsafe mechanism.