The 2018 Kleh Lecture: The End of Citizenship

Boston University School of Law’s annual Kleh Lecture featured Peter J. Spiro, Professor and Charles Weiner Chair at Temple University Beasley School of Law. Spiro joins BU Law as the William & Patricia Kleh Visiting Professor in International Law for the 2018–19 academic year. Professor’s Spiro’s lecture, titled “The End of Citizenship,” examined the varying and complex factors that are leading to a reexamination of citizenship. Emerging norms push for the right of access to citizenship, pressing states to extend citizenship to marginalized populations. Yet, international law protects the growing phenomenon of investor citizenship, in which states put citizenship up for sale. These factors will contribute to citizenship’s separation from the social unity it once represented. 

A former law clerk to Justice David H. Souter of the US Supreme Court, Spiro specializes in international, immigration, and constitutional law, and is a leading authority on citizenship law and theory.

This lecture is made possible through the generosity of Patricia and William H. Kleh (’71), who established the William & Patricia Kleh Visiting Professorship in International Law in February 2011.