Citizenship at home and across borders

This chapter focuses on citizenship as an increasingly important aspect of the relationship between international law and the delineation of territories. Traditionally, nation-states are tilted towards an identification of their established population with its nationality. In times of rapidly growing migration and border-crossing relations, this identification is under pressure and requires additional—often contested—rules about acquisition and loss of citizenship. At first sight, increasing hyper-connectivity on a global scale would seem to diminish the importance of territoriality for citizenship. However, a re-assessment of the importance of citizenship for the realization of fundamental rights supports paradoxically a connection of citizenship with the territoriality of a democratic society. The notion of citizenship has to be reconnected to that of territory, but in a different manner than in the past. The territorial state provides the constitutional setting for citizenship free from ethnic privileges and prejudices. This means that the state should constitute the democratic home for people who participate in its social, economic and cultural life.