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Ex-citizens and the European Convention on Human Rights. Citizenship deprivation examined under the ECHR

Book - Dissertation

This dissertation examines the position of ex-citizens under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). 'Ex-citizens' refers to citizens who have been stripped of their citizenship through the measure of citizenship deprivation. In the aftermath of so-called 'foreign terrorist fighters' and particularly their return, many European States have adopted new powers to deprive these individuals of their national status. Given the relative ease with which States apply this measure, this dissertation examines what legal protection individuals deprived of citizenship can find under the European Convention on Human Rights. Besides studying the European Court's (ECtHR) current approach to claims of ex-citizens regarding their citizenship deprivation, this dissertation primarily aims to subject it to a critical evaluation. To do so, the author of this dissertation has developed her own framework. A framework that consists of two limbs. Two limbs that perform the same exercise, but from a different angle. The exercise places the Court's deprivation approach into a larger framework of case law, which functions as a lens through which to critically evaluate and challenge the former. In other words, the research draws analogies with the Court's larger case law, to draw inspiration from it. Evidently, not all case law constitutes a relevant benchmark for such an analogy exercise, but two categories seem to stand out as offering a particularly relevant lens for it, hence the existence of the two limb-exercise. The first category includes citizenship case law that does not deal with citizenship deprivation, but deals nonetheless with a loss or absence of citizenship status. This allows to observe how the Court deals with citizenship loss in another, perhaps more neutral context, given that citizenship deprivation today mainly operates in a security context. The second category of case law that stands out as a relevant benchmark for this exercise is the case law concerning the various consequential losses of deprivation, i.e. the loss of political rights, of social and economic rights and of territoriality rights. Indeed, citizenship status and the absence of it affects the possession and/or effective enjoyment of various other fundamental rights. Rights that have been extensively considered in prior Strasbourg case law. Performing an analogy between deprivation cases and the latter cases allows to evaluate how the Court assesses similar issues, i.e. the loss of the same Convention right, in different contexts. The analogies serve to challenge the Court's current approach to deprivation claims. Given the relative novelty of States' rediscovery of the measure, the case law on the level of the ECtHR is still in development. Only a handful of cases exist, a few are pending. By introducing these analogies, this dissertation offers a more holistic approach to citizenship deprivation, which aims to inspire the Court to revisit and/or develop further its future deprivation case law.
Publication year:2022
Accessibility:Embargoed