The increased emergence of dual and multiple nationality in our globalized world has recently led to public and scholarly debates on a number of resulting practical questions. This book comprehensively evaluates the legal status of dual nationals on the basis of a comparative analysis, with emphasis on practice and law in the United States of America, the Federal Republic of Germany, Turkey and other selected countries, comprising contributions of both academics and practitioners. Among the legal subjects examined more intensively are the exercise of political rights by dual nationals, including voting and office holding, performance of military service, loss and withdrawal of citizenship, and effects of dual nationality on judicial cooperation, as well as aspects of private international law. The authors pay attention to developmental trends and legal changes in various countries, and also to the philosophical and theoretical perspectives underlying various practices. Specific recommendations for states dealing with dual nationality complete the investigation.

Read Peter's Op-ed on Trump's Immigration Ban in The New York Times The rise of dual citizenship could hardly have been imaginable to a time traveler from a hundred or even fifty years ago. Dual nationality was once considered an offense to nature, an abomination on the order of bigamy. It was the stuff of titanic battles between the United States and European sovereigns. As those conflicts dissipated, dual citizenship continued to be an oddity, a condition that, if not quite freakish, was nonetheless vaguely disreputable, a status one could hold but not advertise. Even today, some Americans mistakenly understand dual citizenship to somehow be “illegal”, when in fact it is completely tolerated. Only recently has the status largely shed the opprobrium to which it was once attached. At Home in Two Countries charts the history of dual citizenship from strong disfavor to general acceptance. The status has touched many; there are few Americans who do not have someone in their past or present who has held the status, if only unknowingly. The history reflects on the course of the state as an institution at the level of the individual. The state was once a jealous institution, justifiably demanding an exclusive relationship with its members. Today, the state lacks both the capacity and the incentive to suppress the status as citizenship becomes more like other forms of membership. Dual citizenship allows many to formalize sentimental attachments. For others, it’s a new way to game the international system. This book explains why dual citizenship was once so reviled, why it is a fact of life after globalization, and why it should be embraced today.

Few African countries provide for an explicit right to a nationality. Laws and practices governing citizenship leave hundreds of thousands of people in Africa without a country to which they belong. Statelessness and discriminatory citizenship practices underlie and exacerbate tensions in many regions of the continent, according to this report by the Open Society Institute. Citizenship Law in Africa is a comparative study by the Open Society Justice Initiative and Africa Governance Monitoring and Advocacy Project. It describes the often arbitrary, discriminatory, and contradictory citizenship laws that exist from state to state, and recommends ways that African countries can bring their citizenship laws in line with international legal norms. The report covers topics such as citizenship by descent, citizenship by naturalization, gender discrimination in citizenship law, dual citizenship, and the right to identity documents and passports. It describes how stateless Africans are systematically exposed to human rights abuses: they can neither vote nor stand for public office; they cannot enroll their children in school, travel freely, or own property; they cannot work for the government.--Publisher description.

The Human Right to Citizenship provides an accessible overview of citizenship around the globe, focusing on empirical cases of denied or weakened legal rights. This wide-ranging volume provides a theoretical framework to understand the particular ambiguities, paradoxes, and evolutions of citizenship regimes in the twenty-first century.

This book is a comprehensive overview of multiple nationality in international law, and contains a survey of current State practice covering over 75 countries. It examines the topic in light of the historical treatment of multiple nationality by States, international bodies and commentators, setting out the general trends in international law and relations that have influenced nationality. While the book's purpose is not to debate the merits of multiple nationality, but to present actual state practice, it does survey arguments for and against multiple nationality, and considers States' motivations in adopting a particular attitude toward the topic. As a reference work, the volume includes a detailed examination of the nature of nationality under international law and the concepts of nationality and citizenship under municipal law. The survey of State practice also constitutes a valuable resource for practitioners.

Explores the ways in which the nation-state and nationalism are challenged by contemporary realities. This volume addresses changes to our understanding of national sovereignty, problems posed by violent conflict between rival national projects, the feasibility of postnationalist democracy and citizenship, and the debate over global justice.

This book identifies the rights of stateless people and outlines the major legal obstacles preventing the eradication of statelessness.