Citizenship: Inside and Out (LAW261H1S)

The term “citizenship” has many legal facets. Citizenship can denote a status, a package of rights and responsibilities, or a set of practices and performances. Inside the state, citizens and non-citizens are constructed by citizenship law, immigration law, constitutional law and other branches of national law. International law recognizes the right of each state to determine who are its nationals, but also places limits on the state’s ability to do so and regulates the rights and duties that attach to nationality when the national is outside her own state. Phenomena ranging from economic globalization to the growth of international human rights to the “war on terror” have led to new thinking on such fundamental questions as who is the citizen, what is the nature of citizenship and to what community does citizenship attach. Are we in an age of multiple citizenships, post-national citizenship, transnational citizenship or cosmopolitan citizenship or are we witnessing the return of a strong citizen/non-citizen divide and the persistence of “second-class” citizenship?
This seminar will explore theoretical and practical perspectives on the acquisition, enjoyment and loss of legal citizenship in Canada and elsewhere. It will also examine law’s role in honing citizenship’s sociological and political facets. Topics to be discussed may include birthright citizenship, the respective rights of citizens and foreign nationals, sexual citizenship, post-national and transnational citizenship, “second class” citizenship, multicultural citizenship and Aboriginal citizenship. No prior study of immigration law or international law is necessary.