The Citizenship of Others

Abstract

The liberal notion of citizenship provides equality to all citizens, without regard to ascriptive or other differentiating characteristics. In this sense, citizenship promises to be dispositive of the treatment of all individuals who enjoy it; citizenship is uniform, unalloyed, and indivisible. These are the attributes of citizenship within a liberal national system, governing the relationships between citizens and the state, and among citizens within the state. But must these characteristics extend into the international realm, or may states choose to look beyond the mantle of citizenship when evaluating the citizens of others? And if states do choose to differentiate, and thereby discriminate, among the citizens of others, what obligations do those citizens' states bear? This Article considers two instances in which the formal equality of citizenship is jeopardized by discrimination on the basis of national origin (the place of one's birth) and ancestry (the place of one's ancestors' birth).