DEFINITIONS OF CITIZENSHIP
Citizenship : Status as a citizen. The citizen is « a person having the civil and political rights, especially, the right to vote within the State he belongs to».
Source : Larousse French Dictionary. [Online]. Page consulted on 15/06/2012 http://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais/citoyen_citoyenne/16241
Citizenship is state or status of citizen. It allows an individual to be recognized as member of a society, a city State in ancient times, or a modern State and to participate in public and political life.
While it creates duties, citizenship provides
access to all political rights, allows
for participation in the civic life
of a society or a political community.
Citizen : subject by right, who
enjoys his/her civil and political rights, and has obligations towards the
State. Nowadays, a citizen is a person
who is under the protection and
authority of a State, of which he/she is a national.
He/she enjoys civil and political rights and performs duties to the State (e.g.
paying tax, obeying laws, fulfilling military service, exercising their
franchise...).
The status of citizen is linked to the acquisition of nationality by birth or
naturalization. He/she should also be of age.
CITIZENSHIP ACCORDING TO THE HUMAN RIGHTS-BASED APPROACH
The human rights-based approach based links citizenship to the process of formulating state policies. As such, citizenship derives its definition from the capacity and commitment of the citizen to participate in all stages of design, implementation and evaluation processes of state policies.
Source: Capitalization of UNESCO Project - Luxembourg 548 RAF 3000.
Training on human rights, citizenship and local democracy in Senegal, Mali and Burkina Faso. [On line]. Page accessed on 15/06/2012.