di Maria Dicosola
The value of citizenship for individuals is often at odds with the value of citizenship for states. This is true in particular with reference to the right to citizenship. As it is well known, the right to citizenship, as the «right to have rights» (Arendt 1948) was introduced in international law – within the context of the international human rights law (Gargiulo and Montanari 2012) – as a safeguard for individuals against the wide autonomy of states in this matter, which led, among the atrocities committed by the authoritarian regimes in the XX century, even to the denationalisation of entire peoples (Panella 2012).
Abstract
The right to citizenship was introduced in international law as a safeguard for individuals against the wide autonomy of states in this matter, which led, among the atrocities committed by the authoritarian regimes in the XX century, even to the denationalisation of entire peoples.
However, the right to citizenship is still far from being effective, due to the permanent need to find a balance between the rights of the individuals and the principle of national sovereignty, in particular in times of stress, such as, for example, the struggle against international terrorism, the crisis of the multicultural societies, etc. The right to citizenship has shown all its fragility in the context of the European Union. Brexit can be considered as a stress test for the right to citizenship in the European Union.
On the basis of these premises, this paper focuses on the right to citizenship in Europe in the context of Brexit, with the aim of demonstrating that its fragility is strictly connected to the ambiguity of EU citizenship itself and the uncertain institutional nature of the European Union.