Citizenship Law Research Articles

EU Citizenship Law and Policy. Beyond Brexit, written by Dora Kostakopoulou

EU Citizenship Law and Policy. Beyond Brexit, written by Dora Kostakopoulou

"Ana Mafi Khouf Min Kafeel": Counter-Narratives in Comedic Video Representations of Migrant Workers in the Arab Gulf States

In the Arab Gulf States, migrant workers are perceived as temporary and economic by dominant nationalist narratives that justify restrictive migration policies and exclusive citizenship laws. This article argues that online popular culture productions offer a space for the emergence of counter-narratives that assert the presence of migrants and advocate social change from below. I examine representations of South Asian workers in short comic skits and song videos produced during the last decade by comedians and actors in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. Focusing on both aesthetic innovation and limitations, my analysis demonstrates how these videos utilize parody and satire to criticize the exclusion of migrant workers. I compare videos produced by Gulf citizens and non-citizens and argue that, even though the producers navigate different boundaries and offer distinct performances, they challenge authority and national boundaries by centralizing spaces of labor and turning them into sites of agency and cultural expression.

Treading the border of (il)legality: statelessness, “amphibian life,” and the Rohingya “boat people” of Asia

ABSTRACT In Myanmar, the state and the Buddhist-majority civil society have long been hostile to the people known as the Rohingya. The Muslim Rohingya have lived in Rakhine state for centuries, but the Myanmar government, labelling them “illegal Bengali migrants,” has rendered them stateless under the 1982 Citizenship Law. The recent “democratisation” of Myanmar facilitated neoliberal expansion in the resource-rich Rakhine and intensified discrimination and violence, and the Rohingyas have been forced to flee in large numbers. They leave Myanmar on fishing boats and trawlers and attempt to enter countries like Bangladesh, Thailand, and Malaysia, “illegally” aided by smugglers. The boat people travel from marginality to ever-prevailing precarity and liminality; en route through the seas and lands of their host countries, they experience further monstrosities perpetrated by state and non-state actors. The judiciary, state, and capital together produce categories of “legality and illegality” that constitute the “amphibian life” of the “boat people” and create for them an ambivalent identity of “refugee-hood” and/or “statelessness.” Here we present our ethnographic study of this violence-laced field of forced migration, situated at the cusp of South Asia and Southeast Asia. We critically extend Agamben’s theory of “state of exception” and “bare life” to elaborate upon the “spaces of exception” experienced by the “boat people” and conceptualise the notion of “amphibian life” by analysing their agentic capability, after and beyond “bare life.”

Citizenship and Marriage Laws of Bhutan

Citizenship of a state is the right of the holder to have the same rights as any other member of the state. In contrast, categorization of citizenship creates distinct groups with different limitations, rights, and privileges and makes citizens unequal before the law. In Bhutan, there are three major and seven subcategories of citizens created by the government. The three major categories include ‘natural-born citizen of Bhutan,’ ‘Bhutanese citizen by registration,’ and ‘naturalized citizen of Bhutan.’ Based on marriage and presence or absence during regular and surprise censuses, there are seven sub-categories of citizens ranked F1 to F7, the abbreviations of the files (F) in which their names are listed. Marriage laws of Bhutan discourage marriages between a Bhutanese citizen and a non-Bhutanese spouse through lifelong penalties and demotion in citizenship categories. While both polyandry and polygamy are legal for up to four marriages, the encouragement is on intra-category marriages. The marriage law applies even to the crown prince, who is a successor of the throne, that he must marry only ‘natural-born citizen of Bhutan’ to remain eligible to the throne. This article highlights the background of promulgation of citizenship and marriage laws and their implication, so that future researchers can compare the Bhutanese and international laws and study how the outlook of the people is shaped.

Security system for stateless persons

Although there are many international treaties on the reduction or elimination of statelessness, national citizenship laws can also help. However, the fact is that the number of stateless people is still rising every year, and there is no effective legal regulation on them, and the living state is chaotic, and the lack of rights has not improved. This paper intends to clarify the urgency and importance of stateless people through the status quo and suggestions of the security system of stateless people, so as to lay the foundation for how to regulate stateless people, and how to solve the lack of rights and difficult life of stateless people, and provide a meager opinion for the solution of international human rights. The full text is mainly divided into individual and individual parts. The first part is the basic requirements of the legal regulation of stateless people; the second part is the improvement of stateless people. Finally, I conclude my conclusions and wishes for the problem of stateless people.

Far-stretching Strategy of Myanmar Junta to Forcefully Displace the Rohingya: Bangladesh, Regional and International Responses

The world continues to see large refugee flows, and the challenges comprising these population migrations are anticipated to become increasingly complicated as a result of rising social, economic, ethnic and especially religious conflicts. In the south-east Asia, this problem has become acute with Rohingya refugees. Northern Rakhine State in Myanmar is predominantly Buddhist and authoritarian despite a majority Arakan Muslim population and a minority Rakhine Buddhist population. Exclusionary citizenship laws and military actions against Arakanese Muslims, often known as Rohingyas, have forced them to depart Myanmar and seek refuge in Bangladesh. This circumstance pictured the inhuman role of the material world to the persecuted Rohingya refugees. The manuscript aimed at delineating Myanmar’s long-term oppressive and illegal strategy of dislocating Rohingya, and the attitude of the host-state Bangladesh, the regional and global superpowers, and instruments in this respect. The short article is designed in accordance with the qualitative method where information has been collected from different sources predominantly from scholarly articles. The manuscript has also suggested that the buzzword ”Rohingya issue” can be solved only if the Sino-Indian mutual understanding takes liberal steps with neutral support towards Bangladesh and Myanmar including asylum-seeker Rohingya refugees

Problems of identity and separatism of ethnic minorities in the global world: case of Assam, India

The article is dedicated to the study of the problem of separatist and protest movements among ethnic minorities in the northeastern Indian state of Assam, seeking to maintain their identity. Over the centuries, migration trends in the state have shaped a complex multiethnic and multicultural population. Amendments to the Citizenship Law in the 2000s led to an even greater unification of the local population in protest groups for political reasons. The first part of the article provides a brief overview of the historical prerequisites influencing the destabilization of the Assamese society in the modern world. The second part focuses on specifics of the protests in 1950s–60s. The third part revolves around the current state of affairs in the Assam society, tracing various forms of protest and identifying sides of the conflicts between: a) tribal communities in their struggle for inclusion in the category of Scheduled Tribes; b) tribes and non-tribal populations; c) tribes and immigrants; d) the unification of tribes against the state. A parallel between ethnic separatism in the Indian northeastern states and the European version is drawn. The article is based on publications in the English-language media and academic works of Indian researchers, in which a view of the problem from within the state is traced. The study concludes that before the problem with illegal immigrants, there was a number of several other reasons, due to which, over the centuries, many ethnic groups have sought to obtain autonomy.

ROHINGYA REFUGEES IN INDONESIA: THE DYNAMICS OF STATELESSNESS AND THE VIEWS OF LOCAL PEOPLE

Rohingya refugees who are experiencing a crisis due to the genocide in Myanmar have attracted international attention. The existence of the Rohinghya as an ethno-religious minority group was officially discriminated against which led to forced expulsion by the Myanmar government in 1982 with the issuance of the citizenship law which stated that Rohingya citizenship was denied or not recognized as one of the official ethnicities in Myanmar. So, the Rohingya were forced to flee their country to other countries, including Indonesia. This paper aims to determine the dynamics of Rohingya Muslims while in Indonesia. Using qualitative research methods by conducting observations, interviews and data analysis. The results of this study indicate that the Rohingya ethnicity in Indonesia as stateless (without citizenship) undergoes a process of acculturation, marriage with local Indonesian citizens (WNI), and developing survival strategies because some have lived in Indonesia for more than eight years. In conclusion, the Rohingya ethnicity while in Indonesia experienced conditions of uncertainty in their lives because they did not have citizenship status and hoped to be sent to a third country by UNHCR. Indonesian people accept Rohingya Muslims to stay in Indonesia temporarily because there is a common Islamic identity and in the name of humanity.

Citizenship and COVID-19: Syndemic Effects

AbstractThis article begins the task of outlining the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in relation to matters of citizenship, using what is termed a “syndemic analysis.” This type of analysis places both the pandemic and citizenship in their wider contexts. The synergistic or intersectional thinking encouraged by the characterization of the pandemic as a syndemic, which links together health, socio-economic issues, and political questions, is useful for highlighting how much more vulnerable to many of the negative impacts of the pandemic in the sphere of citizenship are those who are also more vulnerable both to catching and suffering more seriously from the virus and to experiencing negatively the externalities of the measures taken to restrict social contact by shutting down economies. While the scope of the review is relatively broad and encompasses many different domains of “pandemic life,” what emerges from the analysis are important insights into how many of the impacts of the pandemic in fact operate at the intersection of citizenship and constitutional law and thus play out in the form of changes in relation to constitutional citizenship, both as ideal and as practice. The article takes an important step towards developing the use of constitutional citizenship as a framing device for understanding citizenship as putative full membership in a given society.

Cities in Flux

Abstract From Singapore to New York, via New Delhi, Johannesburg, London, Glasgow and Buenos Aires, “Cities in Flux” registers some of the most profound impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on cities around the world. Narrated in different styles, the individual pieces draw on theories of global cities in neoliberal times as well as on the phenomenological truths of inhabiting these disparate places bound together by a global crisis. The pieces make use of a plethora of urban signs—flashing images, sounds of silence and emergency vehicles, Whatsapp chatter, billboards, found objects, and media noise—to reflect on experiences that are both deeply personal and embodied as well as reflective of a common urban predicament. Even as the pandemic exacerbated problems of housing, transport, health, schooling, employment, environment, and food supply, it also created feelings of waste, loss, and loneliness. All the pieces draw inspiration from a range of urban projects such as the Hot City Collective in New York, the Workers’ Stories Project in Glasgow, the Black Lives Matter movement in London, the Feminist Assembly in Buenos Aires, the C-19 People's Coalition in Johannesburg, and the anti–citizenship law protests and the farmers’ movement in Indian cities. Against the multiplying crises of cities during the time of the pandemic, the different pieces in this pod come together to hope for an urban commons that is based on justice and freedom.

Rethinking Gender, Citizenship, and War: Female Enemy Aliens in Australia during World War I

ABSTRACT Enemy aliens were undesirable migrants in Australia during World War I, right? Yet enemy alien women who sought naturalisation were largely successful. Using the concept of ‘desire’, this article uses quantitative and qualitative material from women’s naturalisation applications to consider why women applied and subsequent state decision-making. The narratives of applicants and administrators reflect wider negotiations over different types of citizenship, where women could challenge their very labelling as enemy aliens, or employ highly gendered notions of vulnerability and respectability. Particular groups were treated favourably, revealing practices which challenge existing historiography about how migration and citizenship laws worked throughout the British empire, especially concerning race and denaturalised women. This is part of a wider need to reassess the relationship between migration law and practice, especially the role of gender and the use of executive privilege. While important to recognise the overlapping push for a ‘global color line’ in creating the system which developed within the British empire, it was less a legal system and more of a constant negotiation between different actors, based on laws that were often imprecise. In this case they gave space for enemy alien women to circumvent the legislative restrictions on their naturalisation, despite the politics of war.

Protection of civilians in the law of war: A case study of Myanmar

The paper is aimed to analyses the Law of War violation in Myanmar. Current communal conflicts in Myanmar among Buddhists and Muslims have cast a pall over the country's transition to democracy. The Rohingya, a Muslim minority group, has been disproportionately affected by the recent round of violence. The Rohingya have been subjected to many human rights violations, which has drawn international attention to the situation. Because the Myanmar government does not recognize Rohingya as a separate ethnic group, they are effectively stateless. Rohingya claim to be indigenous people of Myanmar, despite the government's statements that they came from Bangladesh. The research concludes that as positive as the recent political change has been, the Rohingya's future development does not appear bright. International human rights organizations are urging the global community to pressure Myanmar's administration to amend the Citizenship Law, which effectively makes the Rohingya homeless. The end of this article will give a solution for the Myanmar conflict and protect the Muslim minorities.

Problematika Hak Atas Kewarganegaraan Kehormatan Honorary Citizenship Di Indonesia: Implementasi Dan Dampaknya

The crucial problem in the context of honorary citizenship is related to the process of granting and the mechanism for obtaining special honorary citizenship status. This specificity has an impact on various important elements in regulating the citizenship of a country, both on the conditions, procedures for obtaining or granting mechanisms, to the enjoyment of the right to honorary citizenship. In Indonesia, through the presence of Law Number 12 of 2006 concerning the Citizenship of the Republic of Indonesia, the right to honorary citizenship is part of what is regulated in it. The aims of this paper include: First, to provide an analysis of the conception of honorary citizenship in citizenship law. Second, provide an analysis related to the implementation and impact of the regulation of honorary citizenship in Indonesia. Through a socio-legal approach and qualitative normative research accompanied by a comparative approach in the form of a micro comparison by looking at the substance and legal rules in detail, the results of the research are as follows: First, the concept of honorary citizenship can be seen through the dimensions of a country's citizenship regime based on legal arrangements, interests state, human rights factors and in state development, and the essential political values of a country. Second, with regard to the implementation and impact of the regulation of honorary citizenship in Indonesia, it affects 3 (three) conditions, namely (1) the conditions for obtaining honorary citizenship. (2) The authority to grant honorary citizenship. (3) In the context of losing honorary citizenship status status .

Nepal’s Gender Policies: Achievements and Challenges

Nepal has experienced extraordinary political and social changes in the last 25 years. Since the Constituent Assembly (CA) election in 2008, progress has been noted in increasing women’s access to literacy, education, and healthcare services. Despite significant gender reforms in policies and strategies, Nepali women continue to experience discrimination and violence mainly because of their gender. Drawing upon six different cases – constitutional and international framework, participation of women, women peace and security, sexual and reproductive health rights, gender-responsive budget and citizenship law – this paper highlights some of the achievements and gaps in the area of gender reform policies and practices. Methodologically, the study adopts document review and personal reflections of authors as the main source of information. The paper concludes with some key recommendations to address existing challenges and gaps of these selected policies/strategies.

Doubtful Citizenship: Data and Division in India’s New Citizenship Laws

Doubtful Citizenship: Data and Division in India’s New Citizenship Laws

Acceptable Citizenship: Indigenous Communities and India’s New Citizenship Laws

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Precarious Citizenship: Internal Migrants and India’s Amended Citizenship Laws

Precarious Citizenship: Internal Migrants and India’s Amended Citizenship Laws

Impact of Citizenship and Immigration Law on National Security of Nepal

The citizenship and immigration laws are regarded as the foundational units to assure the security of citizens and also to serve the national integrity. This article discusses about the impact of Nepali citizenship and immigration law on national security of Nepal. What may be the significance of citizenship and immigration law of a nation in an increasingly global society? Has Nepal considered immigration as a threat to security by focusing on societal, economic, internal and public security? In order to elaborate the issues of human security in Nepal from the perspectives of citizenship realm and trends of immigration, it is necessary to investigate the provisions of citizenship provided in the constitution as well as the laws that oversee the effect of immigration on the socio-cultural, political and economic demographics of Nepal. Importance of strong citizenship laws proliferate continuously from dual and transitional citizenship in the context of globalization. Considering the geopolitical location of Nepal and its vulnerability to the possible threats, Nepal’s citizenship and immigration laws have always been the integral part of debate and discussion among the politicians, intellectuals and general public. The development of national security of any country is dependent upon the quality of dignity, liberty and protection ensured to its citizens by the state. So, the economic, social and political rights should be granted to the citizens in equal manner through citizenship while guarding against pretentious foreign interests. Nepal needs to have strong citizenship and immigration laws to sustain its territorial integrity and protect national interests.

Kafala. O sytuacji prawnej pracowników migrujących w państwach Zatoki Perskiej

In Polish reviews, both legal and devoted to Islam studies, the analysis of legal institutions in Arab states is still a rare phenomenon. In the meantime, the Gulf region, apart from dynamic economic growth and expanding influence in spheres of culture, media, sports or transport, has become in the last five decades a destination of one of the most numerous working migrations in history. Next to extraction of oil and gas, migrant workers are now the backbone of economies of the states forming Gulf Cooperation Council. In order to manage the influx of migrants these countries have created a system of legal regulation called, in Arab language, kafala. It is a web of labour law, citizenship law and foreigners law covering different aspects of rights and obligation of working migrants in the Gulf states. The system however has been for many years castigated by international community as suppressing human rights and employees’ dignity. The author describes historical circumstances leading to the current shape of kafala and indicates distinct features of this system in the Gulf states. An analysis of kafala from the perspective of both traditional Islam law, sharia, and international covenants, is being presented. In the conclusion the author states that kafala system in its today’s version is compatible with neither Muslim law, nor the international treaties.

Sovereignty and political belonging in post-Soviet Lithuania: ethnicity, migration, and historical justice

ABSTRACT In this article, we review the history of building a post-Soviet sovereign state in Lithuania by institutionalizing social and political difference of some groups in laws, policy, and public discourse. We argue that an exclusive inclusion of national (ethnic) minorities and migrants have played an important role in defining political belonging to a post-Soviet sovereign state. Language and citizenship laws and policies have been the major sites through which national minorities and migrants have been categorized and integrated in a post-1991 society. We conclude with the analysis of the politics of historical justice, central in defining political belonging to a post-2014 sovereign state.