Citizenship stripping refers to the practice of revoking an individual’s nationality, effectively severing their legal bond with the state. As states bear the responsibility of safeguarding their citizens’ fundamental human rights, the loss of citizenship can leave individuals exposed to severe rights violations. While the practice fell into disrepute after the atrocities of the Holocaust, it has experienced a troubling resurgence in the 21st century.
Since ancient times, banishment—citizenship stripping—has been used as a form of punishment, targeting not just criminals but political dissidents and minority groups. With no nationality, those stripped of their citizenship enter a kind of purgatory, exiled from their families and communities, deprived of a government to protect them. The experience was infamously captured in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Romeo, told he would not be sentenced to death for murder, but instead would be exiled from Verona, bemoans that exile is a worse fate than death.
The drama of Romeo and Juliet captures the truth of the pain of denationalization. The state is the primary institution that guarantees a person’s fundamental rights, and banishment strips people of this protection. Unless they have an alternative form of active citizenship, citizenship stripping leaves people stateless and unprotected. Stateless people live on the margins of society—they are unable to vote, are often denied access to life-saving services, and are vulnerable to serious human rights abuses, such as torture and genocide. Without proof of citizenship, it is hard to open a bank account, travel to a foreign country, or obtain employment.
Accordingly, stripping citizenship became unpopular in the second half of the 20th century. The United States has historically condemned denationalization as a form of “cruel and unusual punishment,” and thus something that is prohibited by constitutional protections in the 8th Amendment. Former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren described the practice as “the total destruction of the individual’s status in organized society” and as such is a “form of punishment more primitive than torture.”
Article 15 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that “everyone has the right to a nationality” and that “no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality.” The inclusion of this clause reflected a desire to respond to atrocities committed during World War II—specifically the violent exile of populations deemed “undesirable” by the Nazi regime. Writing in the aftermath of the Holocaust, Hannah Arendt called citizenship “the right to have rights.” By virtue of being alive, a person has fundamental human rights. Without citizenship, they will find themselves unable to claim those rights. Legal scholar Audrey Macklin calls citizenship stripping ‘political death’.
The practice of denationalization has resurged in the 21st century, particularly in the United Kingdom, where it became a means to punish people suspected or convicted of terrorism. Those denationalized during this measure were dual nationals and thus were not left stateless. Scholars who study forced migration, however, expressed concern over the lack of due process afforded to those stripped of their citizenship. The arbitrary nature of the decisions could create a precedent for exiling vulnerable populations, such as religious minorities like the Rohingya, who have been expelled and denationalized by the Myanmar government.
Citizenship stripping is a conduit for forced displacement. Without citizenship, residents of a country have no rights, leaving them vulnerable to abuse, from torture to land dispossession. As a result, many of those who lose their citizenship flee their homelands, seeking safety across borders.
USCRI, founded in 1911, is a non-governmental, not-for-profit international organization committed to working on behalf of refugees and immigrants and their transition to a dignified life.
