Nationality


Nationality is the legal status of belonging to a particular nation, defined as a group of people organized in one country, under one legal jurisdiction, or as a group of people who are united on the basis of culture.
In international law, nationality is a legal identification establishing the person as a subject, a national, of a sovereign state. It affords the state jurisdiction over the person and affords the person the protection of the state against other states. The rights and duties of nationals vary from state to state, and are often complemented by citizenship law, in some contexts to the point where citizenship is synonymous with nationality. However, nationality differs technically and legally from citizenship, which is a different legal relationship between a person and a country. The noun "national" can include both citizens and non-citizens. The most common distinguishing feature of citizenship is that citizens have the right to participate in the political life of the state, such as by voting or standing for election. However, in most modern countries all nationals are citizens of the state, and full citizens are always nationals of the state.
In international law, a "stateless person" is someone who is "not considered as a national by any state under the operation of its law". To address this, Article 15 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that "Everyone has the right to a nationality", and "No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality", even though, by international custom and conventions, it is the right of each state to determine who its nationals are. Such determinations are part of nationality law. In some cases, determinations of nationality are also governed by public international law—for example, by treaties on statelessness or the European Convention on Nationality. For when a person lacks nationality, globally only 23 countries have established dedicated statelessness determination procedures. Even where such procedures exist, they still have shortcomings in accessibility and functionality, preventing stateless people from accessing rights connected to being determined stateless.
The general process of acquiring nationality is called naturalization. Each state determines in its nationality law the conditions under which it will recognize persons as its nationals, and the conditions under which that status will be withdrawn. Some countries permit their nationals to have multiple nationalities, while others insist on exclusive allegiance.
Due to the etymology of nationality, in older texts or other languages the word "nationality", rather than "ethnicity", is often used to refer to an ethnic group. Individuals may also be considered nationals of groups with autonomous status that have ceded some power to a larger sovereign state.
Nationality is also employed as a term for national identity, with some cases of identity politics and nationalism conflating the legal nationality as well as ethnicity with a national identity.

International law

Nationality is the status that allows a nation to grant rights to the subject and to impose obligations upon the subject. In most cases, no rights or obligations are automatically attached to this status, although the status is a necessary precondition for any rights and obligations created by the state.
In European law, nationality is the status or relationship that gives the nation the right to protect a person from other nations. Diplomatic and consular protection are dependent upon this relationship between the person and the state. A person's status as being the national of a country is used to resolve the conflict of laws.
Within the broad limits imposed by a few treaties and international law, states may freely define who are and are not their nationals. However, since the Nottebohm case, other states are only required to respect the claim by a state to protect an alleged national if the nationality is based on a true social bond. In the case of dual nationality, the states may determine the most effective nationality for the person, to determine which state's laws are the most relevant. There are also limits on removing a person's status as a national. Article 15 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that "Everyone has the right to a nationality," and "No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality."

Determining factors

A person can be recognized or granted nationality on a number of bases. Usually, nationality based on circumstances of birth is automatic, but an application may be required.
  • Nationality by family. If one or both of a person's parents are citizens of a given state, then the person may have the right to be a citizen of that state as well. Formerly this might only have applied through the paternal line, but sex equality became common since the late twentieth century. Citizenship is granted based on ancestry or ethnicity and is related to the concept of a nation state common in Europe. Where jus sanguinis holds, a person born outside a country, one or both of whose parents are citizens of the country, is also a citizen. Some states limit the right to citizenship by descent to a certain number of generations born outside the state; others grant citizenship only if each new generation is registered with the relevant foreign mission within a specified deadline; while others have no limitation on the number of generations born abroad who can claim citizenship of their ancestors' country. This form of citizenship is common in civil law countries.
  • Nationality by birth. Some people are automatically nationals of the state in which they are born. This form of citizenship originated in England, where those who were born within the realm were subjects of the monarch and is common in common law countries. Most countries in the Americas grant unconditional jus soli citizenship, while it has been limited or abolished in almost all other countries.
  • * In many cases, both jus soli and jus sanguinis hold citizenship either by place or parentage.
  • Nationality by marriage. Many countries fast-track naturalization based on the marriage of a person to a citizen. Countries that are destinations for such immigration often have regulations to try to detect sham marriages, where a citizen marries a non-citizen typically for payment, without them having the intention of living together. Many countries allow citizenship by marriage only if the foreign spouse is a permanent resident of the country in which citizenship is sought; others allow foreign spouses of expatriate citizens to obtain citizenship after a certain period of marriage, and sometimes also subject to language skills and proof of cultural integration.
  • Naturalization. States normally grant nationality to people who have entered the country legally and been granted a permit to stay, or been granted political asylum, and also lived there for a specified period. In some countries, naturalization is subject to conditions which may include passing a test demonstrating reasonable knowledge of the language or way of life of the host country, good conduct, and moral character vowing allegiance to their new state or its ruler and renouncing their prior citizenship. Some states allow dual citizenship and do not require naturalized citizens to formally renounce any other citizenship.
  • Nationality by investment or economic citizenship. Wealthy people invest money in property or businesses, buy government bonds or simply donate cash directly, in exchange for citizenship and a passport. Whilst legitimate and usually limited in quota, the schemes are controversial. Costs for citizenship by investment range from as little as $100,000 to as much as €2.5m

    Legal protections

The following instruments address the right to a nationality:
Nationals normally have the right to enter or return to the country they belong to. Passports are issued to nationals of a state, rather than only to citizens, because a passport is a travel document used to enter the country. However, nationals may not have the right of abode in the countries that granted them passports.

Nationality versus citizenship

Conceptually citizenship and nationality are different dimensions of state membership. Citizenship is focused on the internal political life of the state and nationality is the dimension of state membership in international law. Article 15 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that everyone has the right to nationality. As such nationality in international law can be called and understood as citizenship, or more generally as subject or belonging to a sovereign state, and not as ethnicity. This notwithstanding, around 10 million people are stateless.
Today, the concept of full citizenship encompasses not only active political rights, but full civil rights and social rights.
Historically, the most significant difference between a national and a citizen is that the citizen has the right to vote for elected officials, and the right to be elected. This distinction between full citizenship and other, lesser relationships goes back to antiquity. Until the 19th and 20th centuries, it was typical for only a certain percentage of people who belonged to the state to be considered as full citizens. In the past, a number of people were excluded from citizenship on the basis of sex, socioeconomic class, ethnicity, religion, and other factors. However, they held a legal relationship with their government akin to the modern concept of nationality.