People’s idea about the world and the globe has changed over the years. It is fascinating how years ago, people perceived the globe as a flat surface or that they believed nothing else existed, apart from the surroundings they knew and saw with their eyes. People have risked their lives to discover new territories and vaguely define their shape. Nowadays, with the evolution of the humankind and of technologies, humans can reach almost every corner of the world. As an international student, in an international city, I had the chance to meet and discuss with people from around the world and my perception of the globe has changed in a similar way. The world seemed less of a big and scary unknown, and faraway countries seemed closer when I got the chance to know the people and share common interests with them.
Dual citizenship is not a legal impossibility anymore and an increasing number of people identify nowadays as nationals of multiple states at the same time. It is known that there are possibilities to become citizen of a foreign country, but there is a sense of unclarity around the specific options a person has and about which requirements one needs to fulfill, as each country has its specific set of nationality laws.
There are many ways through which a person can become a citizen of a country: by blood right, being born on a country’s territory, by descent, when one or both parents are citizens of the respective state, by marriage, even by investing in a state, and by naturalization.
The approach for the realization of the thesis begins with the ‘theory’ part, for which studying and researching the existing literature was needed, with the goal of explaining what citizenship means and what the options through which an individual can become citizen of a state are. The following part consists of the ‘method’ used, where ten countries from around the world have been selected for further analysis and the focus point of the thesis has been established. Following this, comes the ‘results’ part, where the analysis of each of the chosen countries has been conducted, focusing on the particularities of each naturalization process. The ‘discussion’ part brings the thesis to a conclusion, by presenting the results of the analysis. A comparison of the ten naturalization processes is done at the end and best practices around the topic are stated with the scope of offering a clear path for action.
The ten countries, namely Canada, France, Germany, India, Italy, Saudi Arabia, Spain, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America, have been selected based on factors such as the country’s attractiveness as an immigration destination and the levels of incoming foreign migrants.
🛂Naturalization is the focus points of my thesis and it essentially means residing lawfully and continuously in a state for a certain period of time and fulfilling country specific requirements in order to become a citizen.
🪡This process is tailored by each country, but there are some key points that are observed in many legislations around the world: the person needs to agree to the citizenship contract, formed between citizens and the state, usually by taking an oath of allegiance. Next, the person needs to provide proof of learning the local language, showing commitment to the constitutional and societal norms of the state and knowledge of geography, history, and even traditions. One must also have a good moral character and no criminal convictions. Lastly, another important aspect is being understanding of and committed to the state’s cultural identity and prove being integrated and assimilated into the community.
The naturalization process has been analyzed for each of the ten countries and at the end compared, by studying each state’s nationality acts and consulting with various lawyers’ offices for best practices and recommendations. The countries were arranged based on the difficulty to meet the naturalization requirements. Another part of the comparison had as a goal sorting the countries based on their economic situation, living standards, educational opportunities, as well as their popularity as destination countries for international migrants. The two parts have been set side by side and an interesting relation has emerged – the countries having an easier naturalization process were the ones also with better scores in the economic and social considered factors. This finding sets the base for research of a true relationship between advanced economic and social states and easy and fast naturalization processes.
Despite the similarities in the general approach regarding naturalization, an interesting result showed how the nationality laws are implemented in different ways and are constantly adapted to accompany, historical events or political or economic changes happening in a state.
📸The most interesting learnings are presented in the infographic below.
The comparison of the countries also helped with defining a list of best practices that can practically help anyone faced with the question of naturalization on how to approach the situation in a systematic way for achieving a successful application. First things one should do is understand the meaning of citizenship and learn about the multiple ways through which citizenship can be obtained. In case of a person wanting to relocate, choosing the destination state based on economic and social factors would be optimal. Additionally, a person should understand, depending on his country of origin, whether visas or residence permits are required for living in the state, as well as which type of permits count towards the residency period needed for naturalization. Lastly, when one decides for becoming national of a state, it is important to understand what the country-specific requirements are, and, if necessary, to ask for legal help in order to find out whether any exceptional case is applicable in his situation, which can facilitate the process.