Expert Commentary: Facilitated Naturalization Investment and Citizenship-by-Investment Migration Programs 2020
an administrative directive, although a maximum of only 10 top athletes per year have been admitted in recent times. Other countries are more lenient: at the World Athletics Championships in 2005, for instance, Qatar was represented by almost a dozen elite athletes born in Kenya and naturalized in Qatar. The USA, more than any other country in the world, has gone out of its way to perfect the technique of attracting accomplished athletes by offering them citizenship in return for their pursuit of Olympic medals. Shortly before the 2006 Winter Olympics, President Bush signed a bill that granted citizenship to foreigners with extraordinary ability, allowing, among others, Russian ice dancer Maxim Zavozin to represent the USA. Zavozin thereafter became a Hungarian citizen just in time to represent Hungary at the Winter Olympics in 2010. Iceland naturalized the former world chess champion Bobby Fischer in 2005, helping him escape custody and possible extradition in Japan after authorities in the USA revoked the American passport that he was using to travel from Japan back to Iceland. Other talents, statuses, and sources of fame can also form the basis for facilitated naturalization. In Denmark — a country that has one of the most restrictive naturalization regimes in place today and that, as of 2000, naturalizes only those who speak Danish and know the history and values of Denmark — the Australian bride of Crown Prince Frederik, Mary Donaldson, received Danish citizenship on her marriage in 2004 by an act of parliament. More recently, a young Malian migrant who rescued a child dangling from a balcony was promised French citizenship, Ralph Fiennes received a Serbian passport for filming in the country, and young Afghan refugee Farhad Nouri was offered Serbian citizenship because of his skillful drawings — a privilege not extended
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to the many other refugees living in the country. The list of grounds and examples cannot be exhaustive since the discretion of states in the field of citizenship law is virtually absolute, with an extreme example being Saudi Arabia conferring citizenship on a robot in late 2017. In line with these exemplars of facilitated naturalization, citizenship can also assist in recruiting overseas investors, who are granted citizenship in exchange for their significant foreign direct investment in (or other economic contribution to) a country. Investors are often given an easier path to citizenship than other candidates for naturalization. Applicants who pay do not have to wait for years to be granted citizenship, although, crucially, they do need to be suitably qualified and undergo strict due diligence checks. ‘First come, first served’ is effectively displaced by the ethics of the market: ‘You get what you pay for’. Ius doni, the acquisition of citizenship by investment, is essentially, then, a fast-track procedure for gaining citizenship, a form of facilitated naturalization that is based on the ability and willingness to contribute economically.
Citizenship-by-investment and other forms of naturalization Acquiring citizenship by investment should not be seen or treated differently to other forms of facilitated naturalization. Indeed, there can be no logical qualitative difference between citizenship allocated on the basis of natural-talent assets and citizenship allocated on the basis of financial assets. Both are in the national interest. As Arthur M. Okun puts it, “When people differ in capabilities, interests, and preferences, identical treatment is not equitable treatment.”3 Yet it is no secret that certain people are sensitive when it comes to money matters, feeling strongly
A.M. Okun, Equality and Efficiency: The Big Tradeoff (Brookings Institution Press 1975)
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