CYIL vol. 9 (2018)

IVANA JELIĆ CYIL 9 ȍ2018Ȏ issue of dual citizenship, although that would be often very helpful for the individuals living in newly formed states after dissolution of the former great one. Restrictive legislation of citizenship could be more often found in new states which suffer from the issues in connection with the succession in their rights and obligations (like the case of Montenegro), than the legislation which is very liberal and almost open to wider range of people (like in Serbia). However, only after the World War II, the citizenship as a human right has become the matter of international legal protection, initially through the first international human rights document – Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Its article 15 provides that “everyone has the right to a nationality” and “no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change it”. By this, the right to citizenship was internationalized in its protection. At the same time, the ICCPR does not stipulate this right in concrete, as well as no any other international human rights treaty, so it is to conclude that a lot had been left to the states and their national legislation to stipulate. Although there is no specific provision in the Covenant guaranteeing or stipulating the right, 9 however in the article 24(3) it is emphasized that “every child has the right to acquire a nationality”. The Human Rights Committee takes this norm into account whenever the right of a child is under threat in reality, through the Concluding Observations on the concrete state or the View on concrete case. Although its character is more at the level of legal principle than the provision, the paragraph 2 of Article 15 of the Universal Declaration could be treated as a contribution to the prohibition of statelessness, which is a phenomenon that endangers the safety of people, tearing or not allowing his legal relationship with the state. In its stipulation that ‘no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change it’ can be interpreted that statelessness is unlawful at international legal level. However, it is a neuralgic point of contemporary world. Having in mind that the international legal framework concerning the right to citizenship is modest, great contribution to interpretation of the law has been given by the international judicial and treaty bodies which set legal standards. Under international law, each state determines the conditions for the acquisition and loss of nationality, and neither the laws of another state, nor any other provisions can suspend the nationality of the former country, as noted by the European Court of Justice in the case Micheletti. 10 Although Montenegro is still not a member of the EU, and bearing in mind that the aforementioned standard is linked to the context of the European Union, this country has to respect it as the rule has broader significance of the particular European Union’s. Also, the meaning of the guarantee of enjoying the freedom of the economic activity within the Union 9 However, concretization of this provision is missing from the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, although that was not the case with most of the civil and political rights from the Universal Declaration. The reasons for this could be found in the lack of general consensus on minimum common standard which is necessary for the adoption of generally accepted international rules. In the context of the right to citizenship that would imply a limitation emphasized state sovereignty, to which the State High Contracting Parties of the ICCPR were not ready. 10 Case C-369/90 Mario Vicente Micheletti and others v Delegación del Gobierno en Cantabria , izvori: http://eur- lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:61990J0369:EN:HTML, http://eudo-citizenship.eu/eu- case-law#.UGBVObIgdbc.

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