Abolishing Ius Sanguinis Citizenship: A Proposal Too Restrained and Too Radical

Abstract

Costica Dumbrava maintains that ius sanguinis citizenship is a historically tainted, outmoded, and unnecessary means of designating political membership. He argues that it is time to abandon it. His proposal is bold, and it has significant implications for an array of policies and practices. The parentchild relationship not only serves as a basis for citizenship transmission; it also entitles individuals to immigration preferences, and-in some countries-it facilitates automatic or 'derivative' naturalisation of the children of naturalised parents. In many countries that recognise ius soli citizenship, the parent-child relationship serves as an added requirement: one must be born in the sovereign territory and be the child of a citizen or a long-term legal resident. Dumbrava limits his challenge to ius sanguinis citizenship per se, and even suggests that family-based migration rights could be used to minimise the disruptive effect of abolishing citizenship-by-descent. But his core complaints about ius sanguinis citizenship-the mismatch of biological parentage and political affinity, the difficulties of determining legal parentagecan be, and have been, levied against these various family-based preferences and statuses, which are likely found in every nation's nationality laws. It is therefore important to consider his proposal in light of the role that the parent-child relationship plays in the regulation of migration, naturalisation, and citizenship more generally. With this broader context in mind, I concur with Rainer Bauböck and Jannis Panagiotidis that Dumbrava's proposal rests on an under-informed assessment of the historical record. I also argue that that, as a remedy for the problems that he has identified, Dumbrava's proposal is at once too restrained and too radical.

Jus Sanguinis, “Effective Nationality” and Exclusion: Analysing Citizenship Deprivation in the UK

“…In the UK, the use of secret evidence in closed material proceedings (CMP) by the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC)protects security sensitive intelligence but denies subjects the basic right to know the full details of the case against them.' (Zedner 2016(Zedner , 2010cf Bosworth and Guild 2008) There has been much criticism of citizenship deprivation (Gibney 2014;Collins 2018), but as Zedner argued, courts tend to defer to the executive when the issue of national security is raised, thus limiting judicial review. Citizenship deprivation can occur with little "proof" or wrongdoing.…”