Nationality

In Englishusage, nationality is the legal relationship between a person and a country. 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 Australiannationality 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 statusand capacitywherever 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 policyof parens patriae and derives from the social contract. In the civil lawsystems 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.

The nationals of a country generally possess the right of abodein 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 politicallife 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.

Traditionally under international lawand 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.

Nationality can generally be acquired by jus soli, jus sanguinisor naturalisation.

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.

The nationality of a legal person (e.g., a corporation) is generally the state under whose laws the legal person is registered.

Alternative usage

In several non-English speaking areas of the world, the cognateword 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 Kurdistanis not a state. In the context of former Soviet Unionand former Yugoslavia, nationality is often used as translation of the Russian and Serbian terms (nacional'nost', narodnost) used for ethnic groupswithin those (former) states. Similarly, the term "nationalities of China" refers to ethnic groups in China.

External links

• Grossman, Andrew. Gender and National Inclusion [1]
• Trott, Philip D A. Dual Nationality [2]

See also

• Imagined communities
• nationalism
• nationality law
• naturalization
• jus soli
• jus sanguinis
• Second-class citizende:Nationalität

es:Nacionalidad fi:Kansallisuus fr:Nationalité ja:国籍 nl:Nationaliteit pl:Narodowość pt:Nacionalidade ru:?????????? simple:Nationality

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It uses material from the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationality Wikipedia article Nationality.