Immigrants' rights and the recent Italian constitutional experience

Abstract

According to continental Europe's general theory of public law, sovereignty, land and people were, and still are, the three "constituent elements of the State". This theory was partly built upon, and can be harmonised with the dualistic theory of international law, which considers the State as the only subject of the international community and its laws as the supreme and exclusive expression of a sovereign power to grant rights to aliens who reside on its land. Nevertheless, it is also certain that the legal status of citizenship was born during the French Revolution, and has been considered an obvious issue of constitutional provision since then. This is why, in continental Europe countries, the historical roots of the concept of citizenship are so ambiguous. From one side, this concept is linked with a theory of public law whose main task was to affirm the sovereignty of the State. From the other side, it is linked with a political and constitutional promise of freedom and equality. [excerpt]