Good Neighbourliness as a Limit to Extraterritorial Citizenship: The Case of Hungary and Slovakia

Abstract

The politics of external citizenship can have a negative impact on relations between states when large numbers of geographically concentrated kin minorities are involved. In this sense, while international law norms concerning citizenship do not prevent the extraterritorial granting of citizenship (i.e., do not require permanent residence or preclude naturalisation based on ancestry and linguistic links), such norms require that States co-operate, respecting the principle of good neighbourly relations. The case of Hungary and Slovakia is here used to illustrate such point. Hungary’s legal reforms since 2010 allowing the extraterritorial naturalisation (i.e., lacking a residence requirement) of ethnic Hungarians abroad motivated a harmful punitive move by the Slovak Republic, which established the ex lege withdrawal of the Slovak nationality of those voluntary acquiring a foreign one. Abidance to good neighbourliness in pursuing further reforms could bring an end to such dispute.

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