with democratization processes (Snyder 2000; Geshiere 2009). Many of the groups identified as “strangers” in the nation-building exercise are rendered stateless. For instance, with the exception of Lithuania, the Baltic states excluded ethnic Russians from their understanding of the demos; the Bengalis excluded the Biharis; the Myanmarese omitted the Rohingya; the Bhutanese targeted the Lhotshampa; the Congolese excluded the Banyamulenge; and the Kuwaitis rejected the Bidoon.
This exclusion is often made formal through restrictive or discriminatory citizenship laws. Claude Cahn and Sebihana Skenderovska (2008) observe how many post-Communist states created laws to restrict citizenship, and the concomitant privileges of voting and running for office, to a particular “national” group. Consequently, Serbs and Roma have been excluded from citizenship in Croatia and ethnic Albanians and Roma have been disenfranchised in Macedonia.18 Brad Blitz (2006) discusses the “erasure” of Slovenes shortly after post-Communist independence and Igor Stiks similarly observes how citizenship laws were manipulated in Slovenia “to eliminate a certain number of citizens from the political, social and economic life of the new state” (2006, 492).
Outside of these cases, which clearly violate the UDHR’s Article 15 prohibition on the arbitrary deprivation of nationality, states retain the right to denationalize individuals on other grounds.19 For example, a person may be denationalized for converting to another religion, for failing to renew his or her passport, or for not adapting to a state’s “customs.” As in the early twentieth century, denationalization may occur for residing abroad without permission, committing a crime, or engaging in an act deemed “threatening” or “disloyal” to the state. A person may also be stripped of citizenship if he or she acquires citizenship or seeks asylum in another state. Moreover, denationalization on these and other grounds is not peculiar to democratizing regimes or illiberal states. Developed democracies can and do strip individuals, particularly naturalized persons, of their citizenship.
Whether it is through laws that allow for the denaturalization of those deemed (or suspected) terrorists, those who have committed acts against national security,20 or the revocation of citizenship from those born on the territory “without warning or judicial approval” (Ross and Galey 2014 n. pag.), developed world democracies also engage in practices that force those they consider unworthy of citizenship into liminality or deprive them of membership without consent. In the UK, for instance, people can be stripped of citizenship on these grounds without ensuring they are nationals of another country in practice, rendering them stateless (Bennhold 2014a, b).
In 2014, Canada adopted Bill C-24 (Parliament of Canada 2014), which amends the Canadian Citizenship Act such that dual citizens, or those who have “the possibility of dual citizenship” may be denationalized “for a criminal conviction in another country, even if the other country is undemocratic or lacks the rule of law” (Georgia Straight 2014). According to the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers (CARL), “Bill C-24 eliminates any type of hearing in most revocation cases, and replaces it with an administrative procedure that gives citizens in revocation proceedings less protection than permanent residents who are found inadmissible on grounds of misrepresentation” (2014, 7; italics added). CARL adds that “The result of this law is to remove citizenship and render the person a foreign national” (8; italics added). It is then up to the person concerned to prove she or he is not a citizen of another country in order to avoid statelessness (8).
In 2015, the Australian Parliament passed a similar act to Canada’s Bill C-24. The Australian Citizenship Amendment (Allegiance to Australia) Act (No. 166) declares that a dual national who “acts inconsistently with their allegiance to Australia by engaging in conduct” related to terrorism or foreign recruitment effectively “renounces” her or his Australian citizenship (Parliament of Australia 2015, Section 33AA, para. 1). This provision not only applies to naturalized Australians, but also to those dual nationals who became Australian citizens at birth (para. 8).
According to the act, the minister in charge of denationalization or denaturalization of the Australian dual national does not have to give notification of said person’s citizenship deprivation if the minister “is satisfied that giving the notice could prejudice the security, defence or international relations of Australia, or Australian law enforcement operations” (para. 12). Furthermore, it is at the minister’s discretion or “determination” to decide whether to exempt a person under the act’s effects (para. 14) through consideration of “the person’s connection to the other country of which the person is a national or citizen and the availability of the rights of citizenship of that country to the person” (para. 17f). A person could, therefore, be potentially rendered stateless should the minister choose not to exercise his or her power under paragraph 14.21
While not a case of denaturalization or citizenship deprivation, the state of Texas in the United States has recently been the site of a practice that is almost tantamount to citizenship denial. For several years the Texas Department of State Health Services refused to provide birth certificates to children who were born to undocumented parents in its territory. This affected hundreds of children, primarily of Mexican descent or whose parents were from Central America (Hennessy-Fiske 2016). The result was the creation of Americans “without the papers to prove it” (Blitzer 2015 n. pag.) with repercussions that ran the gamut of being unable to re-enter the United States and problems enrolling children in school and receiving healthcare (2015 n. pag.; and Hennessy-Fiske 2015).22
The affected families sued Texas in federal court and reached a settlement with the Texas Department of State Health Services wherein the latter agreed to accept an expanded list of documents as proof of the immigrant parent’s identity (for example, foreign voter cards, U.S. utility bills and residential leases, or library cards). Juanita Valdez-Cox, executive director of La Unión del Pueblo Entero in Texas, called the settlement “a critical victory for immigrant families, but it is also a victory for the constitutional rights of all of us.… Questioning the citizenship of U.S.-born, citizen children of immigrant parents erodes our constitutional freedoms and protections, causes instability for parents and children, and undermines the guarantee that all of our children will unquestionably be citizens” (cited in Hennessy-Fiske 2016 n. pag.).
These are but a few examples that illustrate the tenuous nature of formal belonging in developed democracies, even for those who are so-called “birthright” citizens (that is, they acquired citizenship at birth through the authorized channels). What makes the cases of denationalization and denaturalization especially troublesome in the Canadian and Australian examples—as opposed to the blatant document denial in the Texas case—is the surreptitious way in which the process may be carried out while the citizens concerned are overseas (thereby preventing their reentry and greatly hindering their ability to pursue legal recourse).
While states have come a long way in reducing gender bias in laws related to property and nationality rights compared to one hundred years ago, statelessness still results from outright gender discrimination. For instance, twenty-seven states prevent their female citizens from passing on their citizenship to their children the same way their male counterparts do: The Bahamas, Bahrain, Barbados, Brunei, Burundi, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kiribati, Kuwait, Lebanon, Liberia, Libya, Madagascar, Malaysia, Mauritania, Nepal, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Swaziland, Syria, Togo, United Arab Emirates (Global Campaign for Equal Nationality Rights 2016).23
In many of these countries, a citizen woman who gives birth to her child while overseas cannot automatically pass on her citizenship to her child. This is not a problem if the father is a citizen of a state that allows for the jus sanguinis transmission of nationality or if the child is born in a country that grants citizenship through jus soli. If neither of these conditions holds, however, or if the father is stateless, the child can be rendered stateless. Many examples exist of children becoming stateless due to conflicts in nationality laws because there is no overarching framework at the international level for regulating citizenship acquisition. It also bears pointing out that developed democracies are not immune to creating stateless persons via gender discrimination
