Acceso usuarios
Samantha Besson
The commodification of citizenship through the devlopment of «investment citizenship» (IC) programs, i.e. the programs that olfer the acquisition of domestic citizenship through financial contribution only, needs to be addressed, so the article argues, through stronger democracy-oriented interpretations of international nationality kw (INL). Unlike other arguments against IC advanced in political theory, this article argues from within the legal practice itself. In contrast to other legal critiques of IC. however, it docs not focus on domestic or European Union law, but on international law: it develops a new interpretation of INL that excludes granting nationality on monetary grounds only. In short, the article argues that contemporary INL is best interpreted in the light of the international principle of democracy (IPD), and the customary international law principle of individual equality, as a form of international pre-commitment to democratic citizenship.
What this means is that the factual conditions for the justification of democracy need to be protected not only under the !PD, but also under INL. In turn, this implies that the condifions of naturalization encompass the sharing of equal and interdependent stakes, both positively so as to include those who share such stakes and negativdy so as not to include those who do not.
