About the Index
Kälin and Kochenov’s Quality of Nationality Index (QNI) is designed to rank the objective value of all the world’s nationalities as legal statuses of attachment to states. Looking beyond simple visa-free tourist or business travel rights, the QNI takes a number of other crucial factors into account to demonstrate that the world’s nationalities are not equal, and that some nationalities afford a better legal status than others to develop your talents while living a rewarding life. The emerging picture reveals that while some nationalities are welcomed bundles of rights, others — the majority, in fact — are clear liabilities for their holders.
Published by Hart, the QNI ranks nationalities — legal statuses of attachment to states — rather than states per se. It takes into account the increase in world migration flows as well as the lack of a correlation between the nationality held by a growing number of active individuals and the countries in which their businesses are established and lives are lived. Such considerations fundamentally distinguish the QNI from the majority of other indexes and rankings, which take states — that is, sovereign territorial entities — somewhat too seriously. In today’s globalized world, the legal status of millions of nationals extends their opportunities and aspirations far beyond their countries of origin: the confines of the state simply are not the limit of one’s ambitions and expectations.
The reality that the QNI describes is regrettable in many respects: in most cases our nationality plays an important role in establishing a highly arbitrary ceiling, one that determines our opportunities and aspirations. This ceiling reflects the core aspect of being a national of some specific place: nationality is based on a random act of birth that bears no correlation to any person’s achievements, ideas, feelings, and desires — instead, it is the result of a ‘birthright lottery’, in the memorable phrase of Ayelet Shachar. This is something that the designers of the QNI do not endorse but nevertheless observe as part of the day-to-day global reality and that the Index aims to document. The QNI, updated annually, is the source of a dynamic understanding of the quality of world nationalities as measured by a set of clear and transparent criteria.
QNI Explainer
Download a simple yet sophisticated explanation of the QNI here: QNI Explainer
The article by Prof. Dr. Dimitry Kochenov and Mr. Justin Lindeboom entitled ‘Empirical Assessment of the Quality of Nationalities’ was published in the European Journal of Comparative Law and Governance Volume 4: Issue 4:
brill.com/view/journals/ejcl/4/4/article-p314_314.xml
About the Creators
The QNI is the result of successful cooperation between Dr. Christian H. Kaelin, Chairman of Henley & Partners, the global leader in residence and citizenship planning, and Prof. Dimitry Kochenov, a legal academic who has been writing about citizenship and teaching nationality and immigration law and policy for more than a decade. The first Hart Publishing edition of the QNI was co-edited by Prof. Kochenov and Mr. Justin Lindeboom.
Dr. Christian H. Kaelin
Dr. Christian H. Kaelin, TEP, IMCM, Chairman of Henley & Partners, is considered one of the world’s foremost experts in investment migration and citizenship-by-investment, a field he pioneered. Holding master’s and PhD degrees in law from the University of Zurich, he is a sought-after speaker and advises governments and international organizations. He is the author, co-author, or editor of many publications, including standard works such as Ius Doni in International and European Law (Brill-Nijhoff, 2019), the Switzerland Business & Investment Handbook (Orell Füssli, 2017), and the Global Residence and Citizenship Handbook (Ideos, 2016).
Prof. Dimitry Kochenov
Prof. Dimitry Kochenov holds a Chair in EU Constitutional Law at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. He has held numerous fellowships and visiting professorships worldwide, including at Princeton University (Crane Fellowship in Law and Public Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School and Visiting Professorship at the Center for Human Values), NYU School of Law (Emile Noël Fellowship), Boston College Law School (Senior Clough Fellowship), Basel Institute for European Global Studies, and Osaka Graduate School of Law and Politics, as well as a Visiting Chair in Private Law (Citizenship) at the University of Turin, Italy. He publishes widely on different aspects of comparative and European citizenship law and migration regulation, and he consults for governments and international organizations on EU constitutional law and citizenship issues. Prof. Kochenov’s latest book is Citizenship (MIT Press, 2019). His edited volumes include EU Citizenship and Federalism: The Role of Rights (Cambridge University Press, 2017) and The Enforcement of EU Law and Values (Oxford University Press, 2017, with András Jakab, University of Salzburg).