AT THE height of
the Dutch golden age, merchants exported their goods and their families to
colonies on four continents. Four centuries later their descendants are less
impressed by such adventuring. A new law proposed by the Dutch government aims
not only to limit dual nationality among immigrants (in 2011 around 20,000
people gained Dutch nationality through naturalization) but also to make it
easier for the authorities to strip members of the 850,000-plus Dutch diaspora
of their nationality, should they secure a second citizenship abroad.
Guus Bosman, a
Dutchman living in Washington, DC, calls the proposal “mean-spirited”. Eelco
Keij, a Dutch citizen in New York and one of the loudest critics of his
government’s proposals, thinks that these days dual nationality is no more than
“a harmless side-effect of globalisation”.
By seeking to
toughen its nationality laws, the Netherlands is bucking a global trend. Other
governments have increasingly abandoned such policies. In 2008 the Migration
Policy Institute, a think-tank, found that almost half the world’s countries
tolerate dual nationality in some form. Armenia, Ghana, the Philippines, Kenya,
Uganda and South Korea are all recent reformers. Haiti and Tanzania have new
laws in preparation. Even Denmark, which places strict restrictions on
citizenship, is mulling a change.
The idea that it
is possible, let alone desirable, to allow multiple citizenship is relatively
recent. In 1849 George Bancroft, an American historian and diplomat, said that
for a man to have two countries was as intolerable as for him to have two
wives. In 1930 the League of Nations proclaimed that “every person should have
a nationality and should have one nationality only”. A treaty in Europe
required countries to limit dual citizenship, until it lapsed in the 1990s.
Immigrants have commonly had to renounce their old citizenship when taking on a
new one; the countries that they left have often disowned emigrants naturalised
abroad. These practices were intended in part to preserve the sanctity of
citizenship, but they have also been aimed at closing loopholes that might
allow migrants to escape taxes or conscription.
One reason for
more liberalisation is practicality: dual nationality has become harder to
control. Increased migration and rising numbers of cross-border marriages mean
that ever more children are born to multinational families. The number of Dutch
citizens holding a second nationality, for instance, almost tripled to 1.2m
between 1995 and 2010, with newborns accounting for a significant share of the
growth. Governments could once force women to take only their husband’s
nationality, says Maarten Vink of Maastricht University. In an era of sexual
equality such policies are untenable.
Governments that
take in many immigrants also see benefits from allowing them to keep their old
passports. Research suggests that immigrants who do not fear losing their
existing nationality are more likely to pursue naturalisation in their adopted
countries—and subsequently more likely to integrate than those who maintain
long-term residence as aliens. (Whether they go on to make better or worse
citizens is harder to prove.)
Tides and dykes
Conversely, countries
that send migrants abroad want to make sure that expatriates do not become
ex-patriots. For poor countries, diasporas are a source of remittances, of
political clout and of reflected glory. The first Costa Rican in space was a
naturalised American citizen, Franklin Chang-Diaz. Some want to atone for past
mistakes. Spain’s Law of Historic Memory tried to heal the wounds of the civil
war by offering dual citizenship to the descendants of those who had fled
Franco’s regime. Long queues formed outside Spanish consulates in Havana and
Buenos Aires on December 27th, the final day of this three-year scheme.
Few tolerant
states now want to reverse their dual-citizenship reforms, although some seem
keen to stop further liberalisation. In November politicians in Germany, which
generally offers dual nationality only to applicants from Europe, turned down a
proposal that would have allowed Germans born to foreigners to retain their
parents’ nationalities in adulthood. From January 1st new citizens in France
are required to sign a charter accepting that they “will no longer be able to
claim allegiance to another country while on French soil”, even though dual
nationality remains tolerated. Marine le Pen, leader of France’s far-right
National Front, wants to end dual citizenship altogether.
New world, new passport
Other countries
have embraced reform reluctantly. America’s citizenship ceremony continues to
demand that candidates “renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any
foreign prince” despite its government’s largely liberal approach to the issue.
In 1967 it took a Supreme Court ruling to confirm that dual citizens voting
overseas should not lose their American nationality. America’s unusual
requirement that its passport-holders pay it tax no matter where they live
gives many qualifying residents good reason not to apply.
In large parts
of the world, especially in poorer and more dictatorial countries, dual
nationals remain anathema. Less than half the countries in Africa condone dual
citizenship. Asian holdouts include Japan and Singapore. China insists that its
sizeable diaspora may hold only one passport, but makes it easy for ethnic kin
naturalised abroad to return home when they wish. India now issues “overseas
citizenship” to emigrants forced to renounce their birth nationality by the
country’s exclusive laws. This gives them many of the privileges enjoyed by
their fellow Indians, but not the right to vote. Christian Kälin of Henley
& Partners, a Swiss-based law firm specialising in what it terms
“citizenship planning”, says a more formal tolerance of dual nationality there
is likely.
For many
ordinary citizens, dual passports still seem dodgy: a convenience for the
cosmopolitan few or a sop to the menacing many, rather than a natural feature
of a migratory world. A poll in May showed that over 60% of Dutch adults, much
concerned by tides of immigrants from Morocco and Turkey, find dual citizenship
undesirable. The tighter rules are part of the coalition agreement behind the
minority government that is backed from outside by Geert Wilders’s nationalist
Freedom Party. The golden age of multiple nationalities may be dawning. But it
is not here yet.
