S. Diasporas and the Law

Diasporas, understood broadly as groups who relate to a ‘state of origin,’ increasingly structure the formation and development of domestic, transnational and international law. Yet the law remains largely oblivious to the phenomenon. The emphasis is typically on legal issues arising in the host state as part of conversations about integration or multiculturalism for example, even as evidence mounts of the significance of the legal connections that diasporic groups continue to maintain with their states of origin. At best, the study of migration is heavily focused on the original movement of persons itself, rather than its long-term ramifications. But what happens two, three or more generations down when national or ethnic groups seek to engage or reengage with a country of origin? How should and have states of origins themselves reacted to such solicitations or even themselves triggered the constitution of diasporas? What of the "host state" and the way it deals with the fact that some of its citizens continue to maintain significant links to another sovereign? How does the diasporic phenomenon reshape notions of belonging, citizenship, and allegiance? And how might we evaluate the role of diasporas themselves as socio-legal actors and perhaps even legal subjects in their own transnational destiny? This course will seek to explore the many dimensions of diasporas' evolving legal existence, from objects of extra-territorial governance to actors exercising extra-territorial voting rights; from paying taxes in several countries to serving in different militaries; from funding opposition movements to supporting governments; as victims of transnational repression or as actors of transitional justice; as perceived vectors of foreign interference or as objects of discrimination, etc. Straddling domestic and international, private and public law, it will examine some of the dilemmas that arise as a result of existing at the intersection of legal orders. The bigger question raised by the course is what the impact of connection to multiple sovereigns has on the modern legal project, and how diasporas might help us think through the question of legal pluralism.