Nationality

In law, culture and the politics thereof, nationality refers to a relationship between a person and their nation, or in legal terms, a country —ie. a place to whom a person has (or is claimed to "owe") their origin, culture, familiarity, association, affiliation, fidelity, and loyalty. The nationals of a country generally possess the right of abode in the territory of the country whose nationality they hold, though there are some exceptions (e.g., British Nationality Law).

Nationality must be distinguished from citizenship: citizens have rights to participate in the political life of the state of which they are a citizen, such as by voting or standing for election; while nationals need not have these rights, though normally they do. Nationality can generally be acquired by jus soli, jus sanguinis or naturalisation. Traditionally under international law and the Conflict of Laws, it was the right of each state to determine who its nationals are. However, today the law of nationality is increasingly coming under regulation, e.g., by the various conventions on statelessness, and the European Convention on Nationality. The nationality of a legal person (e.g., a corporation) is generally the state under whose laws the legal person is registered.

Overview

Where the country only has one legal system, the law matches the common perception, but where the country is divided into separate states, different rules apply. In the common law, upon birth, every person acquires a domicile. This is the relationship between a person and a specific legal system. Hence, one might have an Australian nationality and a domicile in New South Wales, or an American nationality and a domicile in Arizona.

The person remains subject to the state's jurisdiction (the lex domicilii in Conflict of Laws) for the purposes of defining status and capacity wherever he or she might travel outside the state's territory; in exchange, the individual is entitled to the state's protection, and to other rights as well. This is an aspect of the public policy of parens patriae and derives from the social contract. In the civil law systems of continental Europe, either the law of nationality (known as the lex patriae) or the law of the place of habitual residence is preferred to domicile as the test of a person's status and capacity.

Some countries do not permit dual nationality while others only allow a very limited form of dual citizenship (e.g. Indian nationality law, South African nationality law). A person who is not a national of any state is referred to as a stateless person.

Alternative usage

In several non-English speaking areas of the world, the cognate word for nationality in local language may be understood as a synonym of ethnicity, as nation can be defined as a grouping based on cultural self-determination rather than on relations with a state. For example, many people would say they are Kurds, i.e., of Kurdish nationality, even though Kurdistan is not a state. In the context of former Soviet Union and former Yugoslavia, nationality is often used as translation of the Russian and Serbo-Croatian terms (nacional'nost', narodnost) used for ethnic groups within those (former) states. Similarly, the term "nationalities of China" refers to cultural groups in China. Spain is one Nation, made put by nationalities, which are not nations, or can be considered smaller nations within the Spanish Nation.

External links

Grossman, Andrew. Gender and National Inclusion ^*
Trott, Philip D A. Dual Nationality ^*

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Overview

Alternative usage

External links

See also