Ayelet Shachar

University of Toronto | U of T · Faculty of Law

Initially portrayed as the “great equalizer,” the COVID-19 pandemic has proved anything but. This essay recounts the sobering social disparities and vulnerabilities that the pandemic has exposed, especially when it comes to the inequalities that are baked into existing membership regimes, before turning to narratives of hope and democratic renewal....

In The Birthright Lottery, I explored how birthright access to citizenship operates as a distributor (or denier) of opportunity on a global scale. Today, 97 percent of the global population gains access to citizenship solely by virtue of where or to whom they are born. This article shifts the gaze from the automatic transmission of citizenship (whi...

In this response essay, Ayelet Shachar replies to her critics, pushing beyond the arguments developed in her most recent book, The Shifting Border, to probe new ideas. Specifically, she elaborates five avenunes for exploration: dethorning the state as the exclusive decisionmaker on migration; finding the tools to alleviate oppression in the critici...

Migration, participation, and citizenship, are central political and social concerns, are deeply affected by money. The role of money - tangible, intangible, conceptual, and as a policy tool - is understudied, overlooked, and analytically underdeveloped. For sending and receiving societies, migrants, their families, employers, NGOs, or private inst...

Combining insights from the history of citizenship with contemporary legal analysis, this article both highlights and problematizes what we may call sorting strategies – restrictive closure and selective openness – which rely on ‘varieties of affluence’ (income, wealth, equity, credit, and the like) in shaping possibilities for entry, settlement, a...

The Jurisprudence Lecture, delivered by Ayelet Shachar, challenges the established dichotomy between open and closed borders, showing that one of the most remarkable developments of recent years is that borders are simultaneously both more open and more closed. Membership boundaries are not fixed or static. Instead, they expand or shrink, selective...

Disruptive innovation is in vogue. Think the iPhone, the personal computer, or, in earlier days, the Model T Ford automobile. These disruptive innovations have upended older practices and demands, unlocking new sources of change (and desire) by offering what management guru Clayton Christensen of Harvard Business School calls a “different package o...

In this article, we wish to insert a degree of innovation into debates about global law and the supposed demise of state-based public law. We do so by asking how considerations of space, place and density impact the conceptualization and utilization of state power in a world of growing complexity and interdependence. In an array of key policy areas...

Vogue predictions that citizenship is diminishing in relevance or perhaps even vanishing outright, popular among jetsetters who already possess full membership status in affluent democracies, have failed to reach many applicants still knocking on the doors of well-off polities. One can excuse the world’s destitute, those who are willing to risk the...

“There are some things that money can’t buy.” Is citizenship among them? This chapter explores this question by highlighting the core legal and ethical puzzles associated with the surge in cash-for-passport programs. The spread of these new programs is one of the most significant developments in citizenship practice in the past few decades. It test...

In today's age of restrictionism, a growing number of countries are closing their gates of admission to most categories of would-be immigrants with one important exception. Governments increasingly seek to lure and attract “high value” migrants, especially those with access to large sums of capital. These individuals are offered golden visa program...

Religion and constitutionalism often collide on both substantive values and policy preferences. Moving beyond the familiar angle of divergent value sets, this Essay critically highlights the structural, "clash of orders" features that make religion a credible rival and a serious challenger to modern constitutionalism. We identify three additional d...

Contrary to predictions that it would become increasingly redundant in a globalizing world, citizenship is back with a vengeance. The Oxford Handbook of Citizenship brings together leading experts in law, philosophy, political science, economics, sociology, and geography to provide a multidisciplinary, comparative discussion of different dimensions...

This article evaluates demands for privatized diversity that destabilize traditional notions of separation of state and religion, by asking secular authorities to adopt a hands-off, non-interventionist approach, placing civil and family disputes with a religious or cultural aspect beyond the official realm of equal citizenship. This potential storm...

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is globally unique in that it includes explicit commitments to the values of multiculturalism and gender equality. Section 27 of the Charter provides that: “[It] shall be interpreted in a manner consistent with the preservation and enhancement of the multicultural heritage of Canadians,” whereas section 2...

This chapter brings to center stage the debate that is absent in larger discussions about citizenship and immigration: the reality that state and market forces are becoming intertwined in shaping migration selection criteria and membership-allocation priorities. It explains the logic and political economy of talent migration. The chapter juxtaposes...

This article brings to center stage the debate that is absent in larger discussions about citizenship and immigration: the reality that state and market forces are becoming intertwined in shaping migration selection criteria and membership-allocation priorities. It explains the logic and political economy of talent migration. The chapter juxtaposes...

On 12 November 2013 the Maltese Parliament decided to offer Maltese and European citizenship at the price of € 650,000, but implementation of the law has been postponed due to strong domestic and international critiques. On 23 December, the Maltese government announced significant amendments, including a higher total amount of € 1,150,000, part of...

The desire to be great, to make a lasting mark, is as old as civilization itself. Today, it is no longer measured exclusively by the size of a polity's armed forces, the height of its pyramids, the luxury of its palaces, or even the wealth of its natural resources. Governments in high-income countries and emerging economies alike have come to subsc...

Immigration-destination countries are proactively engaged in efforts to reshape and fine-tune their various admission streams, especially those designed to attract the highly skilled. The global race for talent entails a competitive, multiplayer, and multilevel scramble among jurisdictions, and, once the race for talent has begun, the pressure to e...

In this paper, Ayelet Shachar begins by restating the main idea of her important book The Birthright Lottery : Citizenship and Global Inequality (Harvard, Harvard University Press, 2009) and then goes on to address in a constructive spirit the main themes raised by the five preceding comments written by scholars in the fields of law, philosophy and...

Cet article est la traduction française de l’introduction du livre d’Ayelet Shachar, «The Puzzle of Birthright Citizenship», avec la permission de l’éditeur, tirée de The Birthright Lottery : Citizenship and Global Inequality, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, pp.1-18. © 2009 President and Fellows of Harvard College. Traduction de Martin...

All over the world, the challenges of defining the scope and boundaries of the public recognition and accommodation that ought to be given to religious faiths and practices have come to occupy a place at forefront of public debate. The claims of culture have been thoroughly explored in both the constitutional context and the criminal law area. But...

At the heart of contemporary immigration debates lies a fundamental tension between the competing visions of "a nation of laws" and that of "a nation of immigrants." This is particularly evident in the American context. The nation-of-laws camp maintains that people who have breached the country's immigration law by entering without permission (or o...

This article highlights the trials and tribulations of citizenship in a world of increasing mobility and diversity. The discussion is divided into three parts. Section I provides a concise overview of citizenship's multiple meanings and interpretations. Section II constitutes the bulk of the discussion. It begins by exploring questions of membershi...

Ayelet Shachar engages in dialogue with ten insightful commentaries on her influential book, The Birthright Lottery: Citizenship and Global Inequality (Harvard University Press, 2009), written by leading experts in the fields of citizenship, immigration, and globalization.

This Article identifies a fundamental tension between the competing visions of “a nation of laws” and that of “a nation of immigrants.” It then proposes a way out of this stalemate by setting out a new framework that emphasizes the importance of rootedness as a basis for legal title. The idea of “taking root” as a basis for earning entitlement has...

Across the globe, countries are promoting strategic or expedited passport grants, whereby membership is invested in exceptionally talented individuals with the expectation of receiving a return: for Olympic recruits, this means medals. The spread of the talent-for-citizenship exchange, with “Olympic citizenship” as its apex, is one of the most sign...

Michel Rosenfeld's book The Identity of the Constitutional Subject 1 has the distinctive qualities of a delicate wine. It is intricate and multilayered, with additional hints of flavor and memory coming to the surface after the initial taste subsumes. This richness is also reflected in the intellectual sources upon which the book relies. Rosenfeld...

The family sits at the besieged juncture of the private and the public, intimate relations and communal affiliations, contract and status, state and faith-based jurisdictions, raising hard questions for human rights scholars and activists. This chapter focuses on contemporary dilemmas that place minority religious women at the center of charged deb...

This article evaluates demands for privatized diversity that destabilize traditional notions of separation of state and religion, by asking secular authorities to adopt a hands-off, non-interventionist approach, placing civil and family disputes with a religious or cultural aspect beyond the official realm of equal citizenship. This potential storm...

Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide is a powerful journalistic account of the oppression of women worldwide, and of the ways that some women and men have struggle against this oppression and discovered new forms of economic empowerment. The book—in its eleventh printing in less than a year, and with testimonials fr...

Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide is a powerful journalistic account of the oppression of women worldwide, and of the ways that some women and men have struggle against this oppression and discovered new forms of economic empowerment. The book—in its eleventh printing in less than a year, and with testimonials fr...

Citizenship is back in vogue. Politicians speak about it; public-policy makers debate how best to make citizenship meaningful in an age of globalized security threats and migration pressures. Legislatures worldwide have also taken an interest, introducing new citizenship tests and more restrictive admission criteria. Scholars, too, have turned thei...

The late Susan Moller Okin was a leading political theorist whose scholarship integrated political philosophy and issues of gender, the family, and culture. This volume stems from a conference on Okin's work and contains chapters by some of the top feminist and political philosophers working today. They are organized around a set of themes central...

https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674032712 The vast majority of the global population acquires citizenship purely by accidental circumstances of birth. There is little doubt that securing membership status in a given state bequeaths to some a world filled with opportunity and condemns others to a life with little hope. Gaining priv...

In recent years, the specter of litigants turning to religious or customary sources of law as authoritative guides to regulate their behavior, alongside or in lieu of secular norms, has risen to the forefront of politics in many countries worldwide. In this essay, we draw upon citizenship theory and comparative constitutional jurisprudence to ident...

Demands to accommodate religious diversity in the public sphere have recently intensified. The debates surrounding the Islamic headscarf (hijab) in Europe vividly illustrate this trend. We also find a new challenge on the horizon: namely, the request to "privatize diversity" through alternative dispute resolution processes that permit parties to mo...

The global distributive implications of automatically allocating political membership according to territoriality (jus soli) and parentage (jus sanguinis) principles have largely escaped critical scrutiny. This article begins to address this considerable gap. Securing membership status in a given state or region - with its specific level of wealth,...

While the topic of immigration attracts considerable attention, it is by means of birthright, and not naturalization, that approximately 97 percent of the global population acquires political membership. In distributing membership and entitlement, or what Michael Walzer calls “the most important good” within our communities, modern polities have lo...

In today's world, one's place of birth and one's parentage are by law -relevant to, and often conclusive of, one's access to membership in a particular political community. Birthright citizenship largely shapes the allocation of membership entitlement Itself (the "gate-keeping" or demos-demarcation function of citizenship). But no less significantl...

From the controversy in France over whether Muslim girls have the right to wear a headscarf (hijab) in public schools to the debate surrounding the proposal to establish a private Islamic arbitration tribunal (dar-ul qada) in Canada, state and religion appear currently to clash on a regular basis in virtually every region of the world. While disput...

The United States has long been the ultimate IQ magnet for highly skilled migrants. But this trend has changed dramatically in recent years. Today, the United States is no longer the sole - nor the most sophisticated - national player engaged in recruiting the best and brightest worldwide. Other attractive immigration destinations, such as Canada,...

Open any traveler's guidebook about Israel, and you will soon find a photo of a young woman in military uniform carrying a weapon. She is the female soldier. Just like her male peers, she is subject to mandatory conscription to the defense forces when she reaches the age of eighteen. Her image is an emblem of gender equality. Unfortunately, the sta...

In addition to these overarching themes, several specific chapters warrant mention because they offer original and often provocative insights. For instance, in his exploration of German citizenship policy toward the Sinti minority, Gilad Margalit reveals a disturbing pattern of continued exclusion by state officials after the demise of the Third Re...

This article examines the key ethical questions in the design of labor immigration programs. We propose a two-dimensional matrix of ethical space that isolates a number of different ethical frameworks on the basis of the degree of consequentialism they allow and the moral standing they accord to noncitizens. We argue for the rejection of extreme et...

Is it possible for the state simultaneously to respect deep cultural differences and to protect the hard-won citizenship rights of vulnerable group members, particularly women? This 2001 book argues that it is not only theoretically needed, but also institutionally feasible. Rejecting prevalent normative and legal solutions to this 'paradox of mult...

In recent years, political and legal theorists have argued that liberal democracies should accommodate distinctive religious and cultural groups within their borders by exempting them from certain laws or by awarding them a degree of autonomous jurisdiction over controversial legal domains, primarily in education and family law. Such policies prese...

Soulevant le probleme de l'assimilation des diversites culturelles au sein des societes multiculturalistes, l'A. montre que le danger des politiques assimilationnistes consiste dans le renforcement des hierarchies du pouvoir de l'Etat au detriment de certains membres du groupe communautaire. Examinant un aspect particulier de ce paradoxe de la vuln...

The acceptance and accommodation of multiculturalism is now widely practised in liberal democratic states. That a legitimate liberal state must now adopt policies intended to integrate and respect its minorities is no longer a controversial claim. But, according to the editors of Multicultural Questions, it is now important to question some of the...

for insightful conversations about the Muslim arbitration tribunal, Kristil Hammer, Svet Ivanov, Helena Likwornik, and Beth Tsai for their outstanding research assistance, and the editors of the McGill Law Journal. As always, my greatest intellectual debt is to Ran Hirschl for invaluable comments on earlier drafts.  Ayelet Shachar 2005 To be cited...