nationality

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Conflict of laws
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Characterisation Incidental question Renvoi · Choice of law Conflict of laws in the United States Public policy Hague Conference
Definitional elements
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Nationality is membership of a nation or sovereign state, usually determined by their citizenship, but sometimes by ethnicity or place of residence, or based on their sense of national identity.

Citizenship is determined by jus soli, jus sanguinis, or naturalization, which affords the state jurisdiction over the person and affords the person the protection of the state. The word citizenship is often used in a different sense from nationality. 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. The term national can include both citizens and non-citizens.

Nationality can refer to membership in a nation (collective of people sharing a national identity, usually based on ethnic and cultural ties and self-determination) even if that nation has no state, such as the Basques, Kurds, Tamils and Scots. Individuals may also be considered nationals of groups with autonomous status which have ceded some power to a larger government, such as the federally recognized tribes of Native Americans in the United States. Spanish law recognises the autonomous communities of Andalusia, Aragon, Balearic Islands, Canary Islands, Catalonia, Valencia, Galicia and the Basque Country as "nationalities" (nacionalidades), while in Italy, the German speakers of South Tyrol are considered to be Austrian nationals.

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." By custom, 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 and the European Convention on Nationality.

Nationality versus citizenship

In some countries, the cognate word for nationality in local language may be understood as a synonym of skin color. To determine citizenship, the nations in these areas of the world follow the principle of jus sanguinis rather than jus soli. But even then these countries would determine one's nationality by their ethnicity, rather than their citizenship.

In several areas of the world, the term nationality can be defined based on ethnicity, as well as cultural and family-based self-determination rather than on relations with a state or current government. For example, there are people who would say that they are Kurds, i.e., of Kurdish nationality, even though no such Kurdish sovereign state exists at least at this time in history. In the context of former Soviet Union and former Yugoslavia, nationality is often used as translation of the Russian nacional'nost' and Serbo-Croatian narodnost terms used for ethnic groups and local affiliations within those (former) states.

Even today the Russian Federation, as an example, consists of various people whose nationality is other than Russian, but who are considered to be Russian subjects and comply with the laws of the federation. Similarly, the term "nationalities of China" refers to cultural groups in China. Spain is one nation, made out by nationalities, which are not politically recognized as nations (state), but can be considered smaller nations within the Spanish nation.

In a number of countries, nationality is legally a distinct concept from citizenship, or nationality is a necessary but not sufficient condition to exercise full political rights. United States nationality law defines some persons born in U.S. outlying possessions as U.S. nationals but not citizens. British nationality law defines six classes of British national, among which "British citizen" is one class (and the only one having the right of abode in the United Kingdom). Similarly, in the Republic of China on Taiwan, the status of national without household registration refers to a person who has Republic of China nationality, but does not have an automatic entitlement to enter or reside in the Taiwan Area, and does not qualify for civic rights and duties there.

See also

• Blood quantum laws
• Demonym
• Imagined communities
• Intersectionality
• jus soli
• jus sanguinis
• Meta-ethnicity
• Nationalism
• Second-class citizen
• List of nationalities

References

• White, Philip L. (2006). "Globalization and the Mythology of the Nation State," In A.G.Hopkins, ed. Global History: Interactions Between the Universal and the Local Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 257-284.

External links

• Grossman, Andrew. Gender and National Inclusion
• Trott, Philip D A. Dual Nationality
• White, Philip L. "Globalization and the Mythology of the Nation State," In A.G.Hopkins, ed. Global History: Interactions Between the Universal and the Local Palgrave Macmillan, 2006, pp. 257-284.[1]
• Lord Acton, Nationality (1862)