Citizenship and Nationality. An individual and collective challenge for the nation

On Thursday, 17th of May, we are really pleased to invite you to an IFRA-Nigeria/Institut Francais/Institute of African Studies Guest lecture entitled "Citizenship and Nationality. An individual and collective challenge for the nation" by Professor Patrick WEIL.

The lecture will take place at 2pm prompt in Draper's Hall, Institute of African Studies, University of Ibadan.

Prof. Weil is a French Historian and Political Scientist. He is a Senior Research Fellow at the CNRS (National Centre for Scientific Research) and at the Centre for the Social History of the 20th Century at the University Paris 1. His research focuses on comparative citizenship, immigration law, history and constitutional law. For several years, he has been a visiting professor at the Yale Law School.

The lecture will notably address the transformations of Citizenship ―the legal link between the individual and the nation-state―, which has developed its own independent history.

Prior to the American and French Revolutions, citizenship was based on allegiance to versus protection of the King, but in the nineteenth century it was transformed into a conditional status based on rights and duties. Recently, courts and governments have secured citizenship, bringing about a new stage in its development: reversing the traditional dependency of the individual on the state, they recognized that sovereignty belongs to citizens.

This model was presented by the U.S. Supreme Court in the late 1950s, but originated in a movement of the whole international community which aimed to guarantee the protections of citizenship to all individuals: it reduced statelessness, securing it for 99.8% of human beings; it gave rise to multiple citizenship and, paradoxically, reinforced nation-states as the main providers of the "the rigt to have rights."

Far from signifying a "post-national" or "disaggregated" form of citizenship, these legal developments, in the context of globalization, consolidate and reinforce national citizenship.

The lecture will be followed at 4pm by a special film screening of the Thursday Film Series addressing the topic.
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Entrance is free and open to all so do not hesitate to bring your friends, colleagues and families!