Novel Perspectives on the Right to Citizenship in the EU Member States: An Inquiry into Standard-Setting Rulings of the European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Justice of the EU

Scholarly discourses aiming to conceptualise and contextualise the notion of citizenship have flourished in the last couple of decades. The scope of the highlighted areas has been wide and varied, spanning themes from general citizenship theories to more specific reviews of peculiarities inherent to global, European Union, dual, social, transpolitical or other forms of citizenship. Thus, most debates have principally revolved around the framing of the very concept of citizenship and its prevalent modes, with only occasional legal reflections on the essence of the right to citizenship. This paper seeks to contribute to the existing literature on citizenship rights, by focusing on the recent authoritative interpretations of the leading European adjudicators in the domain of contemporary human rights protection: the European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Justice of the EU in relation to several EU Member States. In this fashion, the right to citizenship is addressed from the perspective of influential conventional and communitarian law systems, as construed in selected up-to-date judgements in the cases of Genovese v. Malta, Biao v. Denmark, Mennesson v. France (ECHR) and Janko Rottmann v. Freistaat Bayern (CJEU). Along with the central analysis of the novel perspectives on the right to citizenship expounded in court rulings and their comparative assessment, the paper touches upon the corresponding theoretical and legal framework delineating the notion of citizenship (including EU citizenship) and the right to citizenship in general.