Home | Databases | WorldLII | Search | Feedback Edited Legal Collections Data

Groot, Gerard-René de --- "Nationality Law" [2006] ELECD 195; in Smits, M. Jan (ed), "Elgar Encyclopedia of Comparative Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2006)

Book Title: Elgar Encyclopedia of Comparative Law

Editor(s): Smits, M. Jan

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781845420130

Section: Chapter 44

Section Title: Nationality Law

Author(s): Groot, Gerard-René de

Number of pages: 17

Extract:

44 Nationality law*
Gerard-René de Groot


1 Function and definition
Nationality is both in international and in national law an important con-
necting factor for the attribution of rights and duties to individual persons
and states. Under international law states have, for example, the right to
grant diplomatic protection to persons who possess their nationality
(Donner, 1983). Under national law the obligation to fulfil military service
and the rights to become a member of parliament or to have high political
functions are frequently linked to the possession of the nationality of the
country involved. However, there is no standard list of duties and rights
which normally are linked to the nationality of a state under national and
international law (de Groot, 1989, pp. 13­15; Makarov, 1962, pp. 30, 31;
Wiessner, 1989). National states are in principle autonomous in their deci-
sion on which rights and duties will be connected to the possession of nation-
ality, whereas under international law the consequences of the possession of
a nationality are also subject to discussion (van Panhuys, 1959).
Nationality can be defined as `the legal bond between a person and a
state'. This definition is, inter alia, given in Art. 2 (a) European Convention
on Nationality (Strasbourg, 1997). Art. 2 (a) immediately adds the words
`and does not indicate the person's ethnic origin'. In other words, national-
ity is a legal concept and not a sociological or ethnical concept. The nation-
ality of a country in this legal sense is ...