Supranational Citizenship Building and the United Nations: Is the UN Engaged in a “Citizenization” Process?

The citizenship concept is not absent from UN discourse. However, the use of the term is limited to a conception of citizenship systematically associated to the state; terms such as supranational citizenship or UN citizenship are not part of the usual UN vocabulary. Does that mean that the UN is not “making citizenship” at all? The answer seems obviously positive. Considering the history of the European Union and work on European citizenship, this article demonstrates that such a response may be too hasty. Through the analysis of two institution-building processes—the creation of supranational criminal courts and the opening of UN policymaking processes—it is argued here that just as the European Union was making citizenship well before the Maastricht Treaty explicitly mentioned “European citizenship,” the United Nations is beginning to engage a process of citizenization.