We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 May 2017
There is one point which has been stressed by nearly every one who has discussed the inclusion of nationality in the codification of international law, including the rapporteurs of the League of Nations Committee of Experts and of the Nationality Committee at the First Codification Conference, that is, that this subject is especially difficult because of the fact that it is to a great extent “ political.” Most, if not all, branches of international law are in a sense pohtical, but, when it is said that nationality is peculiarly a political subject, it is meant, no doubt, that the law of nationality is primarily a domestic matter as regards each state, to be determined by each state for itself, according to its needs, social, political, military, economic, etc. Thus no state is willing to surrender its sovereign prerogative in the matter of determining the way in which its nationality may be acquired. But this does not mean that international law has nothing to do with nationality.
1 Page 192 et seq. See also Pinal Act, p. 169 et seq.
2 As to this exception see Research in International Law, Harvard Law School, pages 60-69.
3 This problem was discussed by the writer in an article published in the Yale Law Journal,Vol.30 , pp. 545, 693, entitled “Dual Nationality and Election.” With reference to this subject attention is also called to a very enlightening article by Professor E. Munroe Smith in the Cyclopaedia of Political Science, 1883 , Vol. II, p. 941 . See also Moore, Digest of International Law, Vol. I l l , Ch. XI.
4 Decree No. 202 of October 29,1924, Article 5; Flournoy and Hudson , Nationality Laws, p. 512.
5 Law of May 28, 1929, Article 13; Flournoy and Hudson, op. dt., p. 671.
6 Supplement, Vol. 17 (1923), p. 52; Flournoy and Hudson, op. dt., pp. 608-609.
7 Since the above was written, the statutory provision last mentioned has been repealed.(Sec. 1, Act of Congress approved July 3, 1930; Public No. 508, 71st Congress.)
8 See Flournoy and Hudson, op. cU., p. 512.
9 See Research in International Law, Harvard Law School, pp. 58-60.
10 For a collection of naturalization conventions and other agreements concerning nationality, see Flournoy and Hudson, op. cit., pp. 645 to 710.
11 Attention is also called to an article by the writer, entitled “ Naturalization and Expatriation,” in the Yale Law Journal, Vol. 31 , pp. 702-848, and to the Report on the Subject of Citizenship, Expatriation, and Protection Abroad, H. of R., Doc. No. 326, 59th Congress, 2d Session, Government Printing Office, 1906.
12 Law of June 13, 1912, Article VIII.
13 A thorough discussion of this intricate and baffling subject cannot be undertaken in this place. For the texts of the various laws, students of this subject are referred to Flournoy and Hudson, Nationality Laws, and particularly to the caption “Naturalization ”in the analytical index.
14 Final Act, p. 18. Supplement to this Joubnal, p. 189.
