CYIL vol. 9 (2018)

CYIL 9 ȍ2018Ȏ RIGHT TO CITIZENSHIP BETWEEN INTERNATIONAL LAW AND POLITICS… that it ‘has not yet introduced a separate procedure for determining statelessness, despite ratifying the relevant Convention in 2013’ and that ‘this denies access to rights for potential beneficiaries’. In addition, it was stated that ‘in the field of citizenship rights, Montenegro has started preparations to develop and implement an investors’ citizenship scheme’ and that ‘special attention should be given to making sure there is a genuine connection between the country and the investor, prior to awarding citizenship’. 21 It is to conclude that no matter how restrictive Montenegrin citizenship legislation is, it is in accordance with international standards and harmonized with the acquis due to very broad and flexible framework left to national regulation of the issue. However, such a restrictive law which practically does not provide dual citizenship in practice, although it is stipulated as very restrictive opportunity, has harmed a lot of citizens’ interest especialy those who had already had dual citizenshisp before the Law enteted into force. Issue of Multiple/Dual Citizenship: A Legal Issue among the Law, Politics and Ethics Although there is no concsenzus concerened, given that the states have controversial and totatly different approaches on the issue of right to citizenship, however the multiple citizenship is a legal phenomenon of contemporarity. As the Ljubljana Guidelines conluded, it reflects “the increasing movement of persons across borders as well as intra-family diversity, including across generations, and growing efforts by States to retain legal ties with emigrant populations abroad”. 22 Dual citizenship reflects the reality in terms of the right of citizens of former federations, which had already had simultaniously two citizenships. However, after disolution of the former Yugoslav federation, keeping of two citizenshiop was treated as specific threat to the state integrity. Nationalistic atmosphere was dominant in all new states, so that even the system of options of taking one of possible citizenships for certain period of time, usually within one year after dissolution of former and apperiance of the new state, in practice was not offered to the citizens. The European Convention on Nationality has a starting point in the fact that countries have different approaches towards multiple citizenship. It recognizes the right of every state to freely decide on the possibilities and consequences of dual citizenship, raising the right to sovereignty, on the basis of which the state solely decides on citizenship, above human rights to citizenship. The Convention, in art. 3, stipulates that each state shall determine according to its own legislation who are its nationals, with an emphasize that it is desirable to find suitable solutions for the consequences of multiple citizenship, especially with regard to the rights and obligations of multiple citizenship. It further states, in par. 8 and 9, that every state is free to decide what consequences in its domestic law would have the fact that a certain citizen is aquiring or already has another state‘s nationality“. In contemporary theoretical considerations on the citizenship, the already established view that citizenship is a legal category is confirmed. However, there is a tendency to strongly emphasize that the institute also has political, cultural and economic components. Also, the states’ decisions on citizenship are seen as determinants of whether the state is democratic or

21 European Commission, Montenegro 2016 Report, SWD(2016) 360 final, p. 66. 22 Ljubljana Guidelines, op. cit, p. 44.

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