The Legal Limits of Citizenship Deprivation as a Counterterror Strategy

Abstract

This article studies the legal issues that arise when terrorists are deprived of their citizenship. Although the rules governing the loss of nationality are among the last bulwarks of states’ sovereign discretion, this article shows that international law, Convention rights and even EU law place significant constraints on the exercise of this discretion. It also advances a series of recommendations that could help states minimize the risk of their terrorist denationalization laws being found to be in breach of those higher legal standards. Observance of those recommendations, however, will not prevent terrorist denationalization laws from remaining vulnerable to major criticism, especially concerning their effectiveness, their applicability, and the ‘slippery slope’ on which they put the state.