Terror and the loss of citizenship

Abstract

Terror in the name of God and the specter of returning fighters for the so-called ‘Islamic State’ have recently moved some Western states, including Britain, Canada, and France, toward revoking the citizenship of terrorists. To critics, this constitutes a ‘return to banishment,’ a ‘fate universally decried by civilized people,’ as an American Supreme Court Chief Justice put it in the late 1950s. In a double reflection on the changing nature of terror and of citizenship, this paper argues that denationalization is, in principle, the adequate response to terror. This is because terror, particularly of the Islamist kind, is no ordinary crime but attack on the fundaments of citizenship. But what is right in principle may not be the right thing to do, because denationalization raises serious practicality problems.

Keywords:

• Citizenship
• denationalization
• loyalty
• terror
• punishment

Notes

1. Canada, under a new Liberal government, has most recently changed course again, revoking the controversial citizenship-stripping clause introduced in 2014 by its Conservative predecessor. In France, because Parliament and Senate could not agree on a joint text, President Hollande withdrew his likewise controversial déchéance de nationalité (withdrawal of nationality) proposal, which would have implied a change of the Constitution, in late March 2016.

2. Chief Justice Warren, Trop v. Dulles, 356 U.S. 86 (1958), at 102.

3. Assemblée Nationale, Projet de loi constitutionnelle de protection de la Nation, no. 3381, Paris, 23 December 2015.

4. The Islamic State statement on the November 2015 terrorist attack in Paris, which killed 130 innocent people and seriously injured hundreds more, called the people targeted by their attacks mecreants (unbelievers).

5. Even Walter Laqueur takes some distance to it, in conceding that there is ‘not one terrorism but many terrorisms’ (1996, 24), and that ‘the old terrorism is far from dead’ (1999, 32).

6. The statement can be seen and heard at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4762209.stm.

7. Chris Woods and Alice K. Ross, ‘Former British citizens killed by drone strikes after passports revoked’, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, February 27, 2013 (www.thebureauinvestigates.com).

8. Ibid.

9. BVerfGE, 102, 370 (Körperschaftsstatus der Zeugen Jehovas), Decision of 20 September 2000.

10. Schneiderman v. United States, 320 U.S. 118 (1943).

11. Baumgartner v. United States, 322 U.S. 665 (1944).

12. Article 19.3 of the Constitution of the German Democratic Republic stipulated that the ‘relationship between citizens is characterized … by the principles of socialist morality.’

13. Justice Black, Afroyim v. Rusk, 387 U.S. 253 (1967), at 262.

14. Chief Justice Warren, Trop v. Dulles, at 92.

15. Trop v. Dulles, at 101.

16. Justice Brennan, concurring opinion, Trop v. Dulles, at 113.

17. Perez v. Brownell, 356 U.S. 44 (1958). The case was decided on the same day as Trop, immediately preceding the latter. In Perez, Chief Justice Warren dissented; in Trop, he delivered the court opinion.

18. Chief Justice Warren, dissenting in Perez, at 64.

19. Justice Black, Afroyim v. Rusk, at 268.

20. Victoria Parsons, ‘Citizenship Revoked: What do we know about citizenship stripping?’ The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, December 10, 2014 (www.thebureauinvestigates.com).

21. ‘Gunman Panics Ottawa’, New York Times, October 22, 2014.

22. The Globe and Mail (Toronto), 28 September 2015 (‘Citizenship is a Right, not a Privilege, even for Convicted Terrorists’).

23. Prime Minister Manuel Valls, ‘Une grande portée symbolique’, Le Nouvel Observateur, January 7, 2016, 68–69.

24. Manuel Valls, quoted in ‘Hollande, seul contre les siens’, Le Nouvel Observateur, January 7, 2016, 65.

25. Olivier Roy, ‘La déchéance des valeurs de gauche’, Le Nouvel Observateur, January 7, 2016, 72–73.

26. ‘Hollande: “Ce n`est pas en enlevant la nationalité” que l`on combat “le terrorisme”’, L’Express, April 6, 2016 (lexpress.fr).