Dual citizenship was once universally reviled as a moral abomination, then largely marginalized as an anomaly. During the twentieth century, states were able to police the status and manage incidental costs to the extent that full suppression proved impossible. More recent decades have seen wide acceptance of dual citizenship as those costs dissipated for both states and individuals. Powerful nonresident citizen communities have played a crucial role in winning recognition of the status. A handful of states -- Japan notable among them -- have held out against this clear trend and increasingly vocal emigrant and immigrant constituencies and children of bi-national couples. This session will situate Japan's resistance to dual citizenship in a global historical context.

1. Can Japan Resist Dual Citizenship?
TUJ/Institute of Contemporary Asian Studies
Peter J. Spiro
4 April 2023

2. the long arc of dual citizenship

3. dual nationality as abomination

4. states should “as soon tolerate a man with two
wives as a man with two countries; as soon bear
with polygamy as that state of double allegiance
which common sense so repudiates that it has
not even coined a word to express it.”
- US diplomat George Bancroft, 1849

5. 19th century: dual citizenship as conflict-generating
[perpetual allegiance and the problem of competing claims]

6. problem of competing obligations

7. policing dual nationality
[automatic expatriation, renunciation, election/
tax and military service treaties]

8. “the purpose of the law is reasonable in that it prevents, as much
as possible, dual nationality, which may cause harm. . . . If
multiple nationalities are recognized, there is a risk of friction
between nations over which country protects individuals, and
conflicts may arise regarding obligations such as tax payment and
military service.”
-- Tokyo High Court, Feb. 2023

9. Nationality Act, article 16:
“a Japanese national who has made the
declaration of choice shall endeavour to
deprive himself or herself of the foreign
nationality.”

11. the legacy of loyalty discourses

12. can Japan hold out?

13. wide acceptance, on a permissive basis
[state interest, diaspora pressures]

14. diffusion

15. Migr Stud, Volume 7, Issue 3, September 2019, Pages 362–383, https://doi.org/10.1093/migration/mnz011
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Figure 1. Percentage of countries accepting expatriate dual
citizenship, 1960–2017, globally and by world region.

16. interstate conflict/
duplicative obligations

17. dual citizenship as human right

18. right of free association
[citizenship as club]

19. dual citizenship as identity-protective

20. Sarah: “I thought what I had was normal and I felt like
it created connections between my countries, and to
have to be forced to choose, it felt like a part of me
was being ripped off. . . Having to choose one of the
citizenships felt like I had to choose one parent over
the other, and I was worried about how my parents
would feel if I chose ‘this' citizenship.”
Elena: “it felt like I could only be a child of my father or
my mother, not both.”

21. 1997 European Convention
on Nationality

22. original citizenship as “first love”
- Peter Schuck

23. "I obtained Swiss nationality
because my job requires it, but
I'm emotionally attached to Japan
and this is the foundation of my
identity.”
-- Hitoshi Nogawa, plaintiff in lawsuit
challenging the ban

24. dual citizenship as
advantage/status/privilege
[shifting demand curve]

25. dual citizenship
in the interest of the state
[reinscribing national identity, globally]

26. “[T]his kind of lawsuit has been on the rise in
recent years, and the day may come in the
future when dual citizenship will be recognized
in Japan.”
--Tokyo High Court, Feb. 2023