re: "al-Awlaki and Citizenship"

Peter Spiro at Opinio Juris ("a forum for informed discussion and lively debate about international law and international relations") discusses AAA and what to do about his like in the future.

Money quote(s):

"Al-Awlaki obviously was obviously hostile to the United States; in an older world, in which our adversaries were also states, he would have lost his US citizenship as a member of the armed forces of another state. But the only way to lose your citizenship today is to walk into a US consulate and formally renounce it, a step al-Awlaki wasn’t in a position to undertake.

One response would be to adopt a Lieberman-type terrorist expatriation measure. I don’t think that would do a lot of good, other than generate yet another layer of litigation, this one over whether particular conduct evinced an intent to relinquish citizenship (constitutionally required, as per Afroyim v. Rusk). So that leaves us with some citizens who don’t really seem like citizens, which means that the citizen/non-citizen differential for rights purposes will get smaller still."

The laws regarding expatriation and expatriating acts are still on the books; this business about only those who voluntarily relinquish citizenship is a function of judicial interpretation, which can be overturned. And should be.

10/5

re: "Breaking: Children of Diplomats Getting US Citizenship!"

Peter Spiro at Opinio Juris looked a report about improperly granted U.S. citizenship.

Money quote(s):

"Yes, it’s true. There must be dozens, perhaps even hundreds of newborns who are extended US citizenship every year even though they are “not subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” Find the evidence in a report from the restrictionist Center for Immigration Studies here.

Perhaps I shouldn’t be so snarky: the report is a pretty interesting one."

Not only that, but certainly the children of foreign diplomats can be assumed to have a higher national loyalty to their parent's country rather than our own. That'd be one reason that at least that much of the "not subject to the jurisdiction thereof" restriction actually sticks and hasn't been reduced to Constitutional filler verbiage.

"It considers the single operative exception to the otherwise universal rule of birthright citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment. (There is one major exception — those born into Native American tribal jurisdiction — but that hole was plugged by statute in 1924.) It’s generally understood to be a minor qualification to the otherwise absolute rule, but leave it to the folks at CIS (who run some very useful programs, including a daily wrap of media items relating to immigration) to check out its (non)effect on the ground.

Turns out that nobody is policing the exception. Children of diplomats born in the US get ordinary birth certificates, which is all you need to demonstrate citizenship."

This is something that consular officers abroad are expected to keep an eye out for when we encounter citizenship cases like this abroad. The State Dept. publishes an annual "blue book," IIRC, that lists all those foreign diplomats to whom this restriction might apply. In cases of doubt, we're supposed to refer back to Washington so they can make a determination.

There's still the exception for children born to members of an occupying army, but there's never been a case where that was operative. Hopefully there never will be.

7/ 11

re: "Libya: Did Citizen Evacuations Stand in the Way of Better Policy?"

Peter Spiro at Opinio Juris ("a forum for informed discussion and lively debate about international law and international relations") is, as always, asking some of the right questions.

(Even if he is a lawyer.)

Money quote(s):

"It now seems to be the conventional wisdom (hard to shake once in place) that the U.S. has been slow off the mark on Libya. That may have consequences for U.S. standing in the region."

Conventional wisdom isn't always wrong. It just seems like it most of the time.

Still, perception influences reality, even if it does not (as some believe) equate to reality.

"The Administration got a defense out (on background) that it held off on more decisive action — such as imposing the sanctions that were finally put in place last night — pending the evacuation from Libya of U.S. citizens, U.S. diplomats in particular. As always, safety of U.S. citizens is said to be the highest priority in such unstable situations. Apparently, the U.S. embassy compound in Tripoli is poorly secured, with no Marine guards in place to defend."

No marines in Tripoli? Sounds like the inspiration for a Country & Western song, perhaps using the "Do They Know It's Christmas" tune from 1985.

But I digress.

"That’s a tough place to be. Obviously you don’t want to end up in a hostage situation (the politics of that would be horrific for Obama in addition to all the other reasons — the Carter comparison perfected). But does it have to be the case that U.S. policy itself is held hostage?

Perhaps the lesson here is to have contingency plans in place to pull U.S. officials out of such situations quickly (as of today, think Sanaa, Libreville, Yaounde, among others). That would have the downside of leaving other U.S. citizens without exit assistance, at least not in place. But many of them are taken care of by their corporate employers. Many others will be dual nationals, and only nominally American, and should be able to fend for themselves as well as locals."

There are contingency plans for lots of things. The Marine Corps has something of a sideline in NEOs (non-combatant evacuation operations), but some of the sketchier places tend to rather out-of-the-way and would need some assistance to get out and that assistance would take time getting there.

Recall that during the Rwandan genocide, our embassy folks had to convoy out of the country on their own, something that good RSOs and consular chiefs keep in the back of their minds as one of the nightmare scenarios to prepare against.

The argument about dual nationals has come up before, and The Onion recently did a piece lampooning the American practise of having to evacuate visitors to places nobody in their right mind should want to visit. I don't have an answer to either question, but it's nice to see people asking in public fora what consular officers sometimes ask each other quietly, where the public can't hear us.

(Don't get me wrong, we'll do everything we can to help, but think of us as firemen who can't help but wonder to one another just why you were playing with matches.)

re: "Latest Wikileaks Dump: Swan Song for the Diplomatic Cable?"

Peter Spiro at Opinio Juris ("a forum for informed discussion and lively debate about international law and international relations") clearly understands the issues.

Money quote(s):

"(T)his will be a much bigger story than the previous Iraq and Afghanistan disclosures, mostly because there will be something here for everyone. I’m not sure that the State Department looks particularly bad, as Timothy Garten Ash explains. It shouldn’t be a revelation to anyone that diplomats sometimes do something that looks like spying. This is much more likely to cause scandals in foreign capitals than in the US (which is not to say that it won’t hurt US foreign policy interests — it will). What you will see are lots of examples of US diplomats executing their briefs, in most cases pretty well."

&

"It’s one thing to understand that your work will come to light 25 years hence, when you (and your interlocutors) will either be dead or retired, too old much to care; or else flattered to see your handiwork become the stuff of history. It’s another to have to worry about something being disclosed that might affect your ability to function in your next post (or whether you’ll get one at all)."

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Be sure to read the comments.

re: "Can the State Department Facebook?"

Peter Spiro at Opinio Juris ("a forum for informed discussion and lively debate about international law and international relations") has an interesting, and brief, post about the Department's use of Facebook.
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Hat tip to John Brown at Public Diplomacy Press and Blog Review, Version 2.0.