Brief Considerations on Citizenship from the Perspective of the Council of Europe

Abstract

The concept of citizenship is of paramount importance within the recent legal space. Without a good knowledge of its conceptual foundation, of the mechanisms it encompasses as well as of its interferences with the wide range of human rights documents that have regulated it over time, we cannot have a clear picture of how to understand its evolution. Thus, this research approach aims at analyzing the notion of citizenship as it is seen through the filter of the regional protection mechanism of the Council of Europe, especially focusing on identifying the main documents that consecrated it. Therefore, starting from the general framework of the human rights protection, we narrow the line of analysis by exposing the main coordinates the European Convention on Nationality emphasizes, this document being relevant not only for defining the notion but also for regulating some areas in which citizenship appears as a central element. Last but not least, the paper underlines the connection of the European Convention on Human Rights with the idea of citizenship. The document is remarkable not because it defines the notion, because we already know that this it has no concerns in this field, but more particularly because of the way in which it creates a proper context for the European Court of Human Rights to rule by also taking into consideration some aspects regarding the notion of citizenship. This process automatically creates a bridge between the concept of citizenship and the previously mentioned document, which becomes extremely relevant for the present analysis.