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Abstract
In this article the author examines the multiple changes in the nationality and citizenship status of the former citizens of Yugoslavia in three distinct phases between 1991 and 2006. After Yugoslavia’s break‐up, almost all successor states used their citizenship laws as an effective tool of nation‐building and ethnic engineering. The recent democratization of the region under EU influence resulted also in significant improvements in the nationality and citizenship legislations and administrative practices. Nevertheless, this trend depends largely on the further process of EU enlargement and eventual accession of the ex‐Yugoslav states.
Notes
[1] Similar intentions have influenced the writing of new constitutions. In this article I will mostly concentrate on the laws on nationality and citizenship and their administrative implementation. They are obviously closely related and even inseparable from the practice of ‘constitutional nationalism’ (Hayden Citation1992). That is, the constitutional redefinition of new states as, generally, the national states of their ethnic majority.
[2] In Yugoslavia nevertheless residence never became as important for determining the citizenship status as it is, for instance, in the US legislation. American citizens change their state citizenship automatically if they move to another state within the US. There is also a legal possibility for Americans to possess federal citizenship only if a citizen, for example, lives abroad (Neuman Citation2003: 152–153). Obviously, this type of legislation is more appropriate to federal nation‐states in which the primacy of federal citizenship is clearly stated.
[3] Article 15 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that ‘everyone has the right to a nationality’ and that ‘no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his [sic] nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality’. Article 18 of the 1997 European Convention on Nationality prepared by the Council of Europe sets among its principles in the case of state succession that states should take into account ‘the genuine and effective link of the person concerned with the State’ and ‘the habitual residence of the person concerned at the time of State succession’.
[4] The policy of collective naturalization (Rakić Citation1998: 62–63) rather than that of legal continuity would have been more appropriate to the situation in the former Yugoslavia and to general international efforts aiming at the reduction of statelessness and preservation of basic human rights of an individual in the case of state succession. All successor states of the SFRY predictably avoided the collective naturalization of all habitual residents on their territory regardless of their previous citizenship.
[5] These ‘conditions’ were mostly imposed on non‐Croats, namely ethnic Serbs, coming from other republics. They also provided the grounds for the Ministry in charge to refuse Croatian citizenship to certain individuals (usually non‐Croats from other republics, but also some Croatian Serbs, i.e. citizens of the former Socialist Republic of Croatia).
[6] Numerous reports testify to cases of violations of their right to Croatian citizenship. See, for instance, reports on the issue published in nos 1–2 of Croatian Critical Law Review (Vol. 3, 1998) focusing on The Citizenship Status of Citizens of Former SFR Yugoslavia after its Dissolution.
[7] Taking refugees as hostages was common during the Yugoslav wars. It was part of Tudjman’s manipulation of Bosnian Croat refugees sent to the Krajina region after the Croatian blitzkrieg military action in 1995 that was followed by expulsions and a massive exodus of local Serbs.
[8] See Human Rights Watch Report on FRY for 1996. Available from http://www.hrw.org/reports/1997/WR97/HELSINKI-14.htm#P594_183369; INTERNET.
[9] ’Citizenship of Bosnia and Herzegovina, to be regulated by the Parliamentary Assembly, and a citizenship of each Entity, to be regulated by each Entity, provided that: all citizens of either Entity are thereby citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina’ (Paragraph 7—Citizenship).
[10] The 1992 amendments to the decree on Bosnian citizenship facilitated naturalization of persons actively involved in the defense forces (Muminović Citation1998: 79). On this basis, Bosnian citizenship was granted to a certain number of foreigners who came mostly from Islamic countries and fought on the Bosnian side. In May 2005, a newly formed commission launched a final revision of all naturalizations from 1992 to 1998. Almost 20,000 citizenships are considered problematic and among their holders are, beside Islamic fighters, Serbs from Serbia and Croatia who acquired citizenship of the Serb entity, and ethnic Bosniaks from Sandzak region (Serbia) who were naturalized in the Bosniak‐Croat entity (see ‘Sporno 20.000 državljanstava’ [20,000 Citizenship Statuses Contested] in Slobodan Dalmacija, 14 May 2005, Split. Available from http://www.slobodnadalmacija.hr/20050514/bih03.asp; INTERNET).
[11] For an early comparison between Croatia and Macedonia, see Canapa (Citation1993) and Hayden (Citation1992).
[12] For more detailed information on the case see: http://www.preventgenocide.org/europe/slovenia/; INTERNET.
[13] According to some estimates, up to 300,000 non‐Slovene residents lived in Slovenia in 1991. Obviously, the idea of having such numerous ‘new minorities’ consisting of Croats, Serbs, Bosnian Muslims, Albanians and Roma from other republics was problematic for the first Slovenian independent state’s administration. According to article 40 some 170,000 among them regulated their status, whereas the status of others remained unsolved. Many of them left Slovenia (federal army personnel and their dependents, others with non‐regulated status, etc.), but those who remained in Slovenia and did not ask on time or obtained new citizenship were later erased by an administrative decision.
[14] Slovenia was reluctant to accept the European Convention on Nationality, objecting to the principle that obliges new states to guarantee equal status and economic and social rights to alien residents with citizenship of a predecessor state (see Mesojedec‐Prvinšak & Debelak Citation1998: 212–213).
[15] See for example an article written by employees of the Slovenian Ministry of Internal Affairs (Mesojedec‐Prvinšak & Debelak Citation1998: 213).
[16] Of relevance here is Michael Walzer’s analysis of the status of metics in Western Europe and in North America as residents who, like Athenian metics, are not and cannot be citizens—‘They are ruled, like the Athenian Metics, by a band of citizens‐tyrants’ (Walzer Citation1983: 58)—and Will Kymlicka’s use of the term, borrowed from Walzer, for whom metics are illegal immigrants and temporary immigrants with no right to become citizens as legal immigrants (Kymlicka Citation2001: 39).
[17] The Croatian parliament is supposed to adopt the European Convention on Nationality in 2006. As the Convention forbids any kind of discrimination on ethnic, religious and racial grounds, and since the Council of Europe already required Croatia to change its law on citizenship, it was made clear by the Croatian authorities that the law—especially controversial points regarding non‐equal treatment of ethnic Croats and others—will be rewritten. It will be more difficult for ethnic Croats living outside Croatia to obtain citizenship there without satisfying the usual requirements of actual residence in Croatia. Some other provisions that discriminate against non‐ethnic Croatian residents will equally be removed.
[18] Facilitated naturalization for the Serbian Diaspora is seen as a pre‐electoral promise of the royalist Serb Renewal Movement. See for example an article in the Serbian weekly Vreme, 8 December 2004. Available from http://www.vreme.com/cms/view.php?print=yes&id=398849; INTERNET.
[19] It also mentions in Article 26, para 1, ‘member of Serbian or other ethnicity or ethnic group from the territory of Republic of Serbia regardless of his [sic] place of residence … if he submits a written statement that considers the Republic of Serbia his state’.
[20] The question of the citizenship of Kosovo citizens has yet to be resolved. UNMIK established the new registries of citizens after the 1999 conflict and has issued new Kosovo identification cards and ‘travel documents’. The problem of Kosovo citizenship is directly related to the negotiations on the final status of Kosovo.
[21] See, for instance, a report entitled ‘Serbian‐Montenegrin Relations and the Question of Citizenship of FRY Citizens’, by the Lawyers’ Committee for Human Rights—YUCOM. An executive summary is available from http://www.esiweb.org/pdf/esi_document_id_20.pdf; INTERNET.
[22] The review of the postwar phase in nationality and citizenship changes ends here without a report from Bosnia and Herzegovina. There were no significant changes in this domain in this country, save the above‐mentioned revision of the registries of citizens.
