Exploring Atypical Citizenship Deprivation and Spillover Effects in the Contested Taiwanese Citizenship

Taiwan, an island nation with an ambiguous international status, has one of the most contested citizenship regimes in the world. This paper explores the perspectives of Taiwanese people on their precarious citizenship: a topic previously underexplored. The central argument posits that mis-recognition of Taiwanese citizenship by foreign authorities amounts to a denial of citizenship: a form of atypical citizenship deprivation that lacks human rights safeguards. Two recent European Court of Human Rights (‘ECtHR’) cases illustrate these points: Liu and Others v Norway, and Liu v Poland. In exploring these cases, this paper discusses the spillover effect of how issues of citizenship and sovereignty become crucial in international legal disputes, even when not explicitly related to the primary legal issues of the case in question. These reflections on liminal Taiwanese citizenship illuminate broader concerns of contested citizenship in the contemporary international community.