Rethinking post-national citizenship: The relationship between state territory and international human rights law

Abstract.

With the rise of international human rights regimes, the continued relevance of state sovereignty is being called into question. This paper engages with the possibility for the emergence of post-national citizenship, in which universal human rights are attached to persons rather than territories. The case of detainees held by the US at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, brings to the fore questions about the relationship between territorial boundaries and human rights. An analysis of a recent US Supreme Court ruling on the legal rights of the Guantanamo detainees demonstrates that debates over post-national citizenship misconceptualise the relationship between international human rights law and state territory.

Notes

1. Cited from Sale v. Haitian Ctrs. Council, Inc. (1993).

2. A British court determined that its nationals were effectively in a ‘legal black-hole,’ and beyond its review (Abbasi 2002 EWCA Civ 1598).