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Research project

International migration and constitutional identity - GlobalCitizenshipLaw

An ERC funded project implemented by the Global Citizenship Law team at the Global Governance Programme of the Schuman Centre from 2017 until 2022.

This project is funded by the European Research Council (ERC)

The European Research Council funds “Global Citizenship Law: International Migration and Constitutional Identity” under grant agreement No. 716350.

Governing global migration is one of the most pressing issues of our time. With more than 250 million international immigrants, the question of how citizenship should be distributed has become controversial, morally and politically. Traditionally, international law has not regulated nationality law; naturalisation requirements remain the last stronghold of national sovereignty. This project advanced the establishment of a new subfield in public international law —International Citizenship Law (ICIL) — which would govern nationality law. It asked a critical and timely question: What should be the international norms in setting up requirements for naturalisation and, more broadly, for granting citizenship?

In order to address this question, the project had six objectives:

  • To investigate the history of naturalization and what it can teach us about 21st-century challenges
  • To identify the recent legal developments and establish the most up-to-date legal standards in the field of naturalization law that, taken together, may form the basis for ICIL
  • To set out the theoretical foundations and justifications for the establishment of ICIL
  • To analyse the normative and structural implications derived from an ICIL approach for future citizenship regimes
  • To examine how new technologies can and should remodel the way citizenship is globally governed
  • To explore the interrelationship between ICIL, global migration, and collective identity

The project was structured around three core research areas: [1] Global Citizenship Technology (CitTech); [2] Global Citizenship Compact (GCC); [3] Cities, Membership and Migration (CMM).

The team

Group members

External Partners

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