User:SusunW/Women's nationality

https://www.loc.gov/item/2016878768/ https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-plain-speaker-proof-of-publishing/131141801/ Women's nationality encompasses the history and conditions under which a woman was entitled to nationality, or an individual, legal identity as a subject or national of a sovereign state. Nationality defines a woman's membership in a country, rather than the socio-politico-civil rights she is entitled to from being a citizen of a state, or the ethnic group with which she may affiliate. In the field of international law, nationality statutes were codified in the nineteenth century using customary practices and religious law to define who were members of the state and who were foreigners. Sex discriminatory laws relating to the acquisition, retention, and transmission of nationality were adopted in almost every country in the world. Based on a premise of women's subordination to men, dependent nationality was implemented as a protection for family units and required married spouses to have the same nationality. These laws required a woman to gain the nationality of her husband upon marriage and lose her own nationality, so that their children had a distinct path to the nationality of the father. Unmarried women were often denied the right to immigrate based upon fear that they could not support themselves and their children's nationality was often undefined. Conflicts in the various nationality laws gave rise to statelessness, creating a class of people who could not obtain protection or diplomatic assistance from any nation.

Women's rights activists recognized that for them to gain civil rights domestically, and not arbitrarily lose rights by automatic naturalization in another country, independent nationality was essential. Having their own nationality would also allow women to pass on their nationality to their children, regardless of whether those children were legitimate. From the early twentieth century, activists began pressing for change in international law. The Inter-American Commission of Women worked with women's rights organizations globally to compile a legal comparison of laws and lobbied the League of Nations to address the issues. In 1933, their work led to adoption by the Pan-American Union of the first international agreement on women's rights, the Convention on the Nationality of Women, which provided that nationality of a woman did not change upon marriage within the Americas. Continued activism throughout the century led to the adoption of numerous international treaties and conventions to protect nationality and prevent arbitrary denaturalization, such as the Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons (1954), the Convention on the Nationality of Married Women (1957), the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness (1961), the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (1965), the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979), and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989). There are still some countries which do not allow women to have individual nationality and prohibit children from acquiring nationality from their mothers.

Nationality vs. citizenship
The difference between nationality and citizenship has roots in the ancient world, contrasting the Roman Civitas, those who were united by common laws and status, to the Greek Polis, those who politically participated in their own governance. More specifically, the Roman concept linked persons to the territory or state without regard to their ethnicity, whereas the Greeks defined participation based upon common ethnic identification through shared bloodlines, language, and ritual. With the emergence of organized religions, ideological belief, or nationalism, became a unifying characteristic of identity for humanity. In other words, belief was open to anyone and territorial polities could be united by language groups to maximize the potential spread of ideology. Customary practices and religious law became the foundations of statutory laws which defined belonging or membership, roles and responsibilities of people within societies, and personal status, as well as who was considered an outsider, or foreigner.

Nationality, or an individual, legal identity as a subject or national of a sovereign state, describes a person's relationship to the state. It does not define the socio-politico-civil rights one may derive from being a citizen of a state, or the ethnic group with which one may affiliate. In other words, nationality describes the relationship of a person to the state under international jurisdiction and citizenship describes their relationship within the state under domestic statutes. Different regulatory agencies monitor legal compliance for nationality and citizenship. Although some states, particularly those with colonial ties to Britain, commonly use the terms interchangeably, they have different and specific meaning in law, and do not reflect any specific type of governance or any domestic guarantees of rights. Defining nationality is necessary to establish the rights and obligations of subjects and to define the protections from the state to which nationals are entitled. Within a federal state at any given time, there is only one nationality, but there can be multiple levels of citizenship, whereas within a confederation, there are multiple nationalities of member states which typically hold in common a single citizenship scheme, as in the Commonwealth of Nations. Because of the Master Nationality Rule, if a person holds dual nationality, they may be treated as if they have only a single nationality, typically where they are domiciled, in requests for diplomatic assistance in another state and may not seek protection from a state against another state of which they are a national.

Although the criteria for nationality differs between countries, its foundation is typically based upon either jus soli (right of soil), jus sanguinis (right of blood), or a combination of the two. Jus soli recognizes nationality of people born in a nation; whereas, jus sanguinis stems from the person's ancestry. If nationality is not acquired at birth, processes for naturalization, (and its opposite, denaturalization), are outlined in laws designed to allow foreign persons to acquire (or lose) rights equivalent to native persons. Beyond these basic premises, there were two distinct schools of thought with regard to legislation on women's nationality — dependent nationality, which protects family units by requiring married spouses to have the same nationality, and independent nationality, based upon protecting individual rights. In addition, marital status, legitimacy, and location, were traditionally factors in the ability of a woman to pass on her nationality to her children.

Historic background
Since globally, throughout history, the vast majority (85-90%) of people have married, the contractual and legal requirements of marriage are significant not only for social, but also economic development. From ancient times marriage has been linked to political order because it defines who belongs, or does not belong, to the family unit and joins different kinship groups to each other, creating alliances. Collective identity in the ancient world was based upon kinship ties and shared cultural identity. The intermixing of ethnicities was objectionable and to limit foreign intermarriage, strict adherence to policies controlling the suitablility of marriage partners emerged. During the period before the common era, it was generally unacceptable for people to marry outside of their cultural group and later their confessional community. Although from prehistoric times women who married were typically detached from their original tribe or nation and attached to that of their spouse, the codification of the custom occurred in Roman law, although nationality did not have the same modern connotation.

As tribal organization was replaced by imperial structures, heads of state emerged and allegiance shifted from kinship to a ruler. Rulers were responsible for security in the realm and management of the economy. In exchange for protection, subjects paid taxes and owed loyalty to the head of state and his leadership. Status in the ancient world derived from service to the ruler, and over time moved away being based upon kinship to being based upon military service. These emergent feudal systems would be refined, until they became dominant in the Middle Ages. Marriage in the ancient world was often cum manu meaning the wife was legally incapacitated and under the control of her husband. From the 7th century B.C.E. in India, the Laws of Manu subordinated women to their male relatives. In ancient China, under the Han dynasty (206 B.C.E. to 219 C.E.) a legal code called the Three Obediences and Four Virtues required subordination of women throughout their lives to their father, husband, or sons, and eliminated legal rights for women. From the end of the 7th century in Japan, family registration required enrollment by the male head of household. Although originally registration was for taxation and conscription purposes, and women retained individual rights, by the Edo period (1603 to 1867) women's legal subordination to men was fully established. In the West, these laws had their origins in religious ideology and in the customary practice of Normandy, which declared that upon marriage a husband and wife became one flesh. After the Norman Conquest these customs, known as coverture, spread in the Middle Ages to England, becoming part of English common law.

Over the course of the 19th century, legislation in many nations sought to define the relationship of subjects to the state and introduced sex discriminatory laws relating to the acquisition, retention, and transmission of nationality. The first of these rules conveying legal rights to nationality appeared in France. Codifications in the 19th century, such as the French Napoleonic Code of 1804, the US Naturalization Act of 1855, and the British Naturalisation Act of 1870 among others, led to widespread legal disqualification of women, unequal parental authority, and the automatic loss of a woman's nationality upon marriage. In essence, upon marriage, a woman's legal identity merged with her husband's and her physical body; all of her property, including wages; her ability to enter contracts, or bring suit in court; and her ability to create an independent residence disappeared. Trade and the prevalence of foreign rule spread these customary practices for marriage and inheritance throughout Europe and conquest spread them to colonies throughout the world. Colonization and trade necessitated defining the rights afforded to those who belonged to a nation and those who were foreigners in a realm. Customary terms of state succession developed which specified how rights and obligations would be impacted by the predecessor and successor nations, but also how other parties would be affected. Colonizers often adopted a delayed nationality provisions for inhabitants, or applied different rules for native populations and colonial settlers by decreeing that law which were in force at the time of acquisition remained in force.

By the 1870s, the field of international law was developing, as jurists realized that courts would need to settle legal matters in cases involving multiple jurisdictions and to determine which laws were applicable. Questions about nationality became central to the debate on international private law. While it was clear that nationals within their own country were subject to national law, it was less clear what law should be followed for nationals who were abroad. Also unclear was whether religious affiliation and religious law as an ideology of nationalism through united culture, as opposed to sovereign territorial boundaries established legal nationhood. Between 1851 and 1873, debate ensued between politicians and scholars, with many countries adopting policies that nationality, rather than territorial boundaries or ethnicity, should regulate applicable laws in cases of jurisdictional dispute. In 1873, the Institute of International Law was founded to create cooperation among those involved in the field for the development of international law. Nationality was one of the three components, the others being treaty obligations and public property and debt, codified to ensure continuity of customary rules.

Legal issues
Among the issues facing women were loss of nationality upon marriage or naturalization, re-acquisition of nationality at the dissolution of marriage, and restrictions in transmitting nationality to their children. Conflicts in nationality laws created a type of legal limbo, or statelessness in which a woman lost her nationality in one state, but did not gain the nationality of another. The policies which led to loss of nationality were "often the result of systemic racial discrimination", according to scholars, Michelle Foster and Timnah Rachel Baker. Laurie Fransman, a leading expert on British nationality law, called the legal practice of changing a woman's nationality a legal fiction, as it assumed that one nation had the ability to confer the nationality of another nation upon a subject, when in fact their only authority was to define who could acquire or lose their own nationality. As an example, Mexican feminist Elena Arizmendi Mejía married a German national in 1918. By virtue of the 1886 Mexican Law of Alienship and Naturalization, women automatically obtained their husbands' nationality at marriage. German nationality laws required families to have uniform nationality of the husband and father, so if a man naturalized all members of his family were considered to have naturalized. Arizmendi's husband naturalized as a United States citizen in 1924. German prohibitions against dual nationality required that persons who naturalized in another country were no longer German. Under Mexican law until 1934, a woman's nationality was required to be the same as her husband's, meaning that Mexico considered that Arizmendi became a US national when her husband naturalized. Mexican nationals were excluded from the quotas imposed by the Immigration Acts of 1921 and 1924, but, under the terms of the 1922 US Cable Act, foreign women could not automatically acquire a husband's nationality. They were required to individually apply to acquire US nationality.

By marriage
Until 1910, in almost every country globally except in Argentina, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay, nationality laws concerning men and women were unequal. They required that upon marriage a wife automatically lost her own nationality and received her husband's nationality. Even in those countries where the law did not address the matter tradition assumed that a married woman obtained her nationality from her husband. For example, the first Argentine nationality statue, Law 346 (1869), had no provisions for the loss of nationality, but eleven cases came before the Argentine Supreme Court between 1867 and 1902, which confirmed that an Argentine woman who married a foreigner lost her nationality and a foreign woman married to an Argentine man gained his nationality. This view of nationality, dependent upon family unity, was based on traditions of spiritual unity, male superiority as head of the family, and the obligation of a husband to provide economic support for his legal dependents. Legal protections for dependent nationality recognized that a single nationality was necessary for a family unit because laws governing family relationships and inheritance were impracticable if more than one jurisdiction applied. Giving entire families the same nationality, eliminated the potential for divided loyalty to the state, which might threaten national interests. It also recognized that legal issues might arise from a mother having different nationality than her children. The consequences of dependent nationality included loss of rights to which a woman had been accustomed in her place of origin, as well as loss of the state's protection.

Under the terms of France's Napoleonic Code of 1804, women who married followed their husbands' nationality. The code made no differentiation for French women who married foreign men or foreign women who married French men. The Napoleonic Code was implemented in the Netherlands in 1809, and automatically bestowed upon a wife the nationality of her husband. The same provisions were enacted in Russia in 1864, in Portugal under the Civil Code of 1867, and in Spain under the first Civil Code enacted in 1889. The first phase of derivative nationality for women in the English-speaking world, impacted foreign women who married nationals. In the United States, the Naturalization Act of 1855 stated that foreign women who married American men became US nationals, but it did not address whether American women marrying foreign men lost their nationality. The law was based upon the British Aliens Act of 1844, which specified that foreign women married to British subjects were to be considered as British. However, it was not until passage of the 1870 British Naturalization Act that all British women automatically derived their nationality from their husbands. The United States followed suit requiring all women to have the same nationality as their husband by virtue of the Expatriation Act of 1907. The law automatically and retroactively denaturalized, any American woman who had married a foreigner. Similarly, the 1869 Ottoman nationality law (tâbiiyet-i osmaniye kanunnamesi), provided that foreign women acquired Ottoman nationality through marriage, but an amendment to the law in 1909 required all women to derive the nationality of their husband upon marriage. The Ottoman amendments were influenced by and were very similar to provisions in the 1894 Persian nationality law.

Typically the loss of a wife's nationality was without her formal consent, as legal opinion assumed that by consenting to marry, she had agreed to the legal conditions of marriage. Likewise, there were rarely provisions for protecting women who did not automatically obtain their spouses' nationality. Japanese law was an exception. In 1873 the Great Council of State issued Proclamation 103, which allowed for registration of marriages between aliens and Japanese nationals. It provided that if a foreign woman married a Japanese man, she would become a Japanese national, but a Japanese woman would only lose her Japanese nationality if she did not acquire her foreign husband's nationality upon her marriage. France modified its civil code in 1889 to allow a woman to retain her nationality if she did not automatically acquire her husband's, which prompted similar legislation in Bulgaria, China, Costa Rica, Italy, Mexico, Nicaragua, Portugal, and Switzerland. Between 1910 and 1930, reformers pressed for domestic laws to allow women to consent to loss of their nationality and to stipulate that unless her husband's nation granted a wife nationality her own would not be lost. Growing attention to the matter occurred during World War I, when some women who had lost their nationality through marriage were considered to be enemy aliens or spies. Such women's loyalty was called into question and in some cases they became targets for their property to be confiscated to prevent them aiding enemies of the state. Women became vulnerable to statelessness and had no consular office from whom to seek protection.

By naturalization and denaturalization
The myth of monoculturalism has often been the underpinning of national identity and thus nationality policy. The ability of an immigrant to assimilate into the mainstream society has been foundational to whether naturalization was possible. Entering a country as an immigrant was restricted by numerous provisions to keep undesirable immigrants out. These often included prohibitions against people with criminal records or who engaged in immoral behaviors, those who had disabilities or diseases, people who were unable to support themselves (including aged persons), those whose political or religious beliefs were radically different (including polygamists), and people whose race or ethnicity might be detrimental to the harmony of society. Single women, despite meeting criteria for immigration, were often rejected because of the fear that they would resort to prostitution to support themselves or would become dependent upon state support. As with nationality acquired at birth, for married women, naturalization was typically automatic upon a husband's change in nationality until the 20th century.

According to sociologist David Scott FitzGerald, every independent country in the Americas restricted immigration for at least one ethnic group in the period between 1803 and 1930. For example, in the United States, nationality from 1790 was limited to free White persons, and after passage of the 14th Amendment at the conclusion of the civil war was expanded to include Africans and descendants of Africans. Non-White persons, including Native Americans, First Nations Canadians, Mexican, and Asian nationals, were routinely barred from naturalization, until 1940 when the Nationality Act was amended to include anyone of a race "indigenous to the Western Hemisphere", and 1952 when the McCarran-Walter Act abolished racial restrictions against the naturalization of people from Asian countries. Because a wife derived her nationality from her husband, if he was ineligible to be a US national, his wife was also barred, even if she had been an American at birth. Although the Cable Act ostensibly granted married women individual nationality in 1922, it did not remove racial disqualifications and wives who married ineligible foreigners continued to lose their nationality, until an amendment of 1931 removed the requirement that the husband had to be eligible for naturalization.

The Australian colonies, began passing legislation to restrict African and Asian immigrants in the 1860s. In 1901 the Commonwealth of Australia replaced the Federal Council of Australasia and that same year implemented the White Australia policy, which would restrict immigration and naturalization in the country until 1973. Liberia from 1848 and later Sierra Leone, nations founded by former slaves, both passed constitutions that restricted nationality to Black descendants. Racial qualifications also appeared in nationality policies of other African nations as they gained independence. Libya restricted nationality to people of Arab descent, but the restriction did not apply to women. Other countries also had racial restrictions for naturalization and immigration including Canada between 1910 and 1947, Panama between 1909 and 1945, and Nazi Germany from 1933, until its demise. Each of these three countries had laws at the time that did not allow wives to naturalize separately from their husbands.

The legacy of colonialism and the processes of state succession during decolonization were also factors in statelessness caused by racism. Colonists often believed that they were superior to native inhabitants. For example, in Britain, the crown recognized from 1350 that all persons born within the territories of the British Empire were subjects. Those born outside the realm — except children of those serving in an official post abroad, children of the monarch, and children born on a British ship — were considered by common law to be foreigners. British Nationality Acts did not extend beyond the bounds of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, meaning that under Britain's rules of conquest, laws in place at the time of acquisition remained in place until changed.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/26405298

Transmitting nationality to offspring
In European nations, it was common for children to derive their nationality from their fathers. Under British common law, single women, including divorcées, were not allowed to be parents thus their children could not derive nationality maternally and were stateless unless legitimated by their father. In Latin America, from the time of each nation's independence, it was typical for children who were not born in the country to derive nathionality from either of their parents.

Re-acquisition of nationality
https://heinonline-org.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/HOL/Page?public=true&handle=hein.hoil/stlsnsr0001&div=8&start_page=23&collection=hoil&set_as_cursor=15&men_tab=srchresults Laws of some countries allowed repatriation after the termination of a marriage by death or divorce, while others did not. There was an assumption that as long as she was "covered" (in coverture), a woman shared her husband's nationality, but if the marriage ended, she could resume her prior nationality. If laws prevented a woman from regaining her nationality of origin or she was unable to return to her prior nation, she faced potential statelessness. In the United States, the ambiguous nature of the law before 1907, meant that Nellie Grant, daughter of President Ulysses S. Grant, who divorced her British husband had to obtain an individual Act of Congress in 1898 to reacquire her U.S. nationality. After 1907, a woman could regain her nationality by filing a declaration and returning to the U.S., but after 1922, she could only reaquire her U.S. nationality through naturalization. Typically to regain nationality women had to prove that their marriage had dissolved. This presented various problems, like in the case of Irma Bornheim, a Swiss woman who had married a Jewish, German man. When she applied during the Second World War for restoration of her nationality, because her husband was deported by the Nazis, her request was denied because he was classified as missing, but she was granted refugee status to return to Switzerland.

Dual nationality
Prohibiting dual nationality emerged as a result of war between powerful states, as a means of limiting the possibility that enemies could infiltrate the armed services in time of war. This war logic ignored the ties many immigrants and refugees maintained for their country of origin, their patriotism toward their new home, and the fact that the blanket prohibition barred obtaining nationality from any country, disregarding whether they were an ally or not. Bans against dual nationality could be used to expatriate women, even if their domestic law did not require derivative nationality at marriage. Such was the case in Chile, which from its founding allowed foreigners, who were engaged in a profession and were married to Chilean women, to be nationals. However, between 1925 and 1957, if a Chilean automatically acquired other nationality because of marriage, their Chilean nationality was cancelled because of a prohibition against dual nationality.

Global overview
https://www2.ed.gov/policy/rights/guid/ocr/raceoverview.html In the 20th century, there was a growing recognition in the period by activists and jurists alike that marriage between parties of different nationalities, statelessness, and dual nationality were international concerns because of conflicts between national laws. Increasingly, from the 1930s, the League of Nations developed treaties codifying international law to address disparate nationality laws. These changes were based on legal systems recognizing individual rights, specifically the idea that married persons could have different nationalities in an egalitarian system. Laws designed to protect individual nationality recognize that civil rights guaranteed for citizens of nations vary, for example, the ability to terminate a marriage or inherit property. Independent nationality statutes also protect against threats to national security which might arise from forced nationality, as opposed to patriotic consent to nationality.

The consequences of independent nationality include difficulty in maintaining a residence for the family if domestic law where the family wish to reside restricts immigration of foreigners. Another issue results from the vulnerability and dependency that an immigrant spouse has upon its partner until requirements of residency or nationality have been met. Denial of a derivative nationality for a foreign husband can have serious repercussions on families because of legal restrictions on an alien's ability to obtain employment, property, or residency.

Numerous international treaties and conventions have been adopted to protect nationality and prevent arbitrary denaturalization, such as the Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons (1954), the Convention on the Nationality of Married Women (1957), the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness (1961), Article 5 of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (1965), Article 9(1) of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979), and Article 7 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989).

Latin America
Prior to 1910, Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay did not require women to assume the nationality of their husband. The first Argentine nationality law of 1869, had no provisions for the loss of nationality, but eleven cases came before the Argentine Supreme Court between 1867 and 1902, which confirmed that an Argentine woman who married a foreigner lost her nationality and a foreign woman married to an Argentine man gained his nationality. In 1902, the Supreme Court of Argentina definitively ruled that marriage was not a factor in a woman acquiring or losing nationality. Under the 1822, 1823, and 1828 Constitutions of Chile, foreign men married to Chilean women were Chilean, as long as they lived in the country and were engaged in a profession. However, between 1925 and 1957, if a woman acquired the nationality of a foreign husband under the law of the husband's country, she was denationalized because dual nationality was not permitted. From the adoption of its first constitution in 1870, Paraguay made no gendered distinctions in acquiring nationality and had no requirement for women to lose their nationality upon marriage. With the adoption of the 1940 constitution, denaturalization was required upon acquisition of another nationality, but from 1959, dual nationality with Spain was permitted. Similarly, Uruguay's first constitution of 1830 was silent on loss of nationality by marriage, but did provide for denaturalization if a person obtained another nationality. Under Title II, Article 53 of the Uruguayan Civil Code of 1868 an undivorced married woman was required to maintain the same domicile as her husband. In Latin American jurisprudence, the principle of jus domicilii tied nationality to the place where one had established their legal residency. Amendments to the Civil Code in Uruguay 1895 and 1914 did not change the requirement for a married woman to maintain the same domicile as her husband. Although the Constitution of 1918, continued to bar dual nationality, Uruguay recognized dual nationality in 1919.

In the rest of Latin America, the states which had an automatic expatriation for women, upon marriage in the nineteenth century, included Argentina (1867), Bolivia (1830), Brazil (1860), Colombia (1843), Costa Rica (1841), Cuba (1889), the Dominican Republic (1845), Ecuador (1852), El Salvador (1886), Guatemala (1877), Honduras (1906), Mexico (1823), Peru, and Venezuela. Those that prevented denaturalization after 1889, if the wife did not acquire her husband's nationality at marriage were Costa Rica, Mexico, and Nicaragua. The Cuban Constitution of 1911 allowed native Cuban women to retain their nationality upon marriage, but required a foreign woman married to a Cuban man to derive nationality from her husband. Brazil issued Decree Nº 21.076 in 1932, eliminating the requirement for a woman to take the nationality of her foreign spouse.

In 1933, the first international agreement regarding women's equal rights was adopted by the Pan-American Union. The Convention on the Nationality of Women, prepared by the Inter-American Commission of Women was ratified by 19 of the independent states of the Americas, and provided that "neither matrimony nor its dissolution affects the nationality of the husband or wife or of their children". Shortly after the treaty ratification, numerous countries began modification of their constitutional provisions by eliminating women's derivative nationality – Colombia, Honduras and Venezuela (1936), Bolivia (1938), El Salvador and Nicaragua (1939), Cuba (1940), and Ecuador (1946).. The Costa Rican Options and Naturalizations Act of 1950, provided that a married woman's nationality could not be lost unless she chose to accept her spouse's nationality. This was modified on 6 June 1995, by Article 1 of Law No. 7514, making nationality an inalienable right. Women in the Dominican Republic no longer lost their nationality by marriage after the adoption of the 1994 Constitution. The Guatemalan Nationality Law of 1894, gave a foreign woman the right to obtain or relinquish nationality independently, if her husband naturalized. Changes to the Civil Code in 1933 allowed Guatemalan women to retain their original nationality if they specified a choice to do so, in their marriage contract. The 1945 Constitution of Guatemala granted gender equality. Article 9 of the Honduran Constitution of 1936 provided that nationality for women and children could not be lost by a change in marital status. It also instituted a provision for loss of nationality if naturalized by another country.

From independence, all of the South American countries adopted a policy that birth in the country established a person's nationality. Some of the states, for example, Colombia from 1866 and Ecuador from 1830, also followed the principle of jus domicilii, meaning residence in the country was required to retain nationality. For children born abroad, it was typical for them to derive nationality from either of their parents, but there were exceptions. In Brazil a mother could only transmit nationality to an illegitimate child from 1824 to 1934, when a constitution was adopted defining nationality as being derived from birth to a Brazilian father or mother. Between 1830 and 1839, children in Bolivia could only derive nationality from their fathers. The 1871 Costa Rican Constitution specified that for children born abroad, who were not legitimate or legitimated or were unrecognized by their fathers, nationality derived from the mother. From the adoption of the 1885 Civil Code, a mother's authority was only recognized for illegitimate children in Costa Rica, as in general it was considered that only legitimate children could receive protection from the state. From 1950, children in Costa Rica were able to derive their nationality from either parent. Cuban children who were illegitimate followed the nationality of the first person to recognize them and could only obtain the mother's nationality if the father did not acknowledge his paternity. From 1940, Cuban children could derive nationality from either parent. From the adoption of the 1886 Constitution of El Salvador, only unrecognized, illegitimate children could obtain nationality from their mothers. A constitutional change in 1939 in El Salvador allowed children to derive their nationality maternally. From 1946, Ecuadorian children could not be deprived of their nationality, by either a change in their parents' status or because of dual nationality. After adoption of the Constitution of 1871, illegitimate children born to Guatemalan mothers could choose to obtain Guatemalan nationality by residing in the country or declaring their intent within one year of obtaining their majority. Under the terms of the Immigration Act of 1936 children born to a Guatemalan mother and foreign father were not nationals. These requirements were negated by adoption of a new constitution in 1945 which eliminated conditions based on legitimacy, From 1906 in Honduras, a mother's nationality could only be derived for her children, even in the case of illegitimacy, if the child was unrecognized by the father. The Honduran Constitution of 1936, allowed children to derive nationality from either parent.


 * {{nowrap|{{flagdeco|Mexico}}Mexico
 * {{dts|1823}}
 * {{dts|1857}}{{sfn|Augustine‐Adams|2006|p=22}}
 * {{dts|1934}}{{sfn|Augustine‐Adams|2006|p=30}} (see details (1))
 * {{dts|1843}}{{sfn|Hernández Juárez|2018|p=60}} (see details (2))
 * {{dts|1969}}{{sfn|Fitzgerald|2005|p=177}}
 * {{dts|1974}}{{sfn|Hoyo|2015|p=4}}
 * {{dts|1917}}{{sfn|Hoyo|2015|p=14}}
 * {{dts|1974}}{{sfn|Hoyo|2015|p=4}}
 * {{nowrap|{{flagdeco|Panama}} Panama
 * {{dts|1843}}
 * {{dts|1888}}{{sfn|Uribe|1901|p=854}} (see details)
 * {{dts|1941}}{{sfn|Rodríguez Serna|2016|p=5}}
 * {{dts|1830}}{{sfn|Vetancourt Aristeguieta|1959a|p=135}}
 * {{dts|1888}}{{sfn|Flournoy Jr.|Hudson|1929|p=181}}
 * The Naturalization Law (Ley 145) of 1888 stated in Article 17 that wives and minor children (under age 21) derived the nationality of the husband or father.{{sfn|Uribe|1901|p=854}} This was challenged in two court cases before the Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.{{sfn|Stevens|1933|pp=13-14, Part II}} As Panama gained independence prior to the 1923 ruling,{{sfn|Stevens|1933|pp=13-14, Part II}}{{sfn|Rodríguez Serna|2016|p=3}} its laws were ambiguous on whether Panamanian-born women lost their nationality upon marriage.{{sfn|del Moral|2006|p=177}}{{sfn|Illueca|1945|p=140}}
 * {{nowrap|{{flagdeco|Peru}} Peru
 * {{dts|1836}}{{sfn|Villarroel Smeall|2001|p=17}}{{sfn|Stevens|1933|pp=4-5, Part II}}
 * {{dts|1836}}{{sfn|Villarroel Smeall|2001|p=17}}{{sfn|Stevens|1933|pp=4-5, Part II}}
 * {{dts|1979}}{{sfn|Maestre Alfonso|1987|pp=341, 364}}{{sfn|Pazo Pineda|2015|p=4}} (see details (1))
 * {{dts|1839}}{{sfn|Pazo Pineda|2015|pp=3-4}}{{sfn|Bonifaz Stagnaro|1946|p=211}}
 * {{dts|1834}}{{sfn|Pazo Pineda|2015|p=3}}
 * (1) Under the Constitution of 1933, wives were required to derive nationality from their husbands, but a birthright national could retain her nationality, unless she renounced it. Foreign wives' nationality remained an automatic derivation from the spouse.{{sfn|Stevens|1933|p=54, Section II}} Article 93 of the 1979 Constitution of Peru, provided that neither marriage nor its dissolution impacted Peruvian nationality.{{sfn|Maestre Alfonso|1987|pp=341, 364}}
 * {{nowrap|{{flagdeco|Puerto Rico}} Puerto Rico Unincorporated territory of the United States
 * {{dts|1889}}{{sfn|Viñas Farré|2009|p=288}}
 * {{dts|1889}}{{sfn|Viñas Farré|2009|p=288}}
 * {{dts|1934}}{{sfn|Bredbenner|1998|p=241}} (see details (1))
 * {{dts|1902}}{{sfn|Revised Statutes|1902|pp=817-818}}
 * {{dts|1902}}{{sfn|Revised Statutes|1902|pp=817-818}}
 * {{dts|1934}}{{sfn|Orfield|1934|p=110}}
 * 1) The US Nationality Act of 1934 contained provisions allowing Puerto Rican women who had lost nationality because of marriage prior to 2 March 1917 to repatriate.{{sfn|Bredbenner|1998|p=241}}
 * {{nowrap|{{flagdeco|US}} United States
 * {{dts|1855}}{{sfn|Sapiro|1984|p=3}}
 * {{dts|1855}}{{sfn|Kerber|1998|p=41}} (see details (1))
 * {{dts|1922}}{{sfn|Batlan|2020|p=324}} (see details (2))
 * not applicable
 * {{dts|1866}}{{sfn|Stevens|1933|p=61, Part II}} (see details (3))
 * X mark.svg (see details (4))
 * {{dts|1934}}{{sfn|Orfield|1934|p=110}}
 * 1) While the Naturalization Act of 1855 specified that foreign wives gained US nationality, the law created confusion as to whether it applied to American women who married aliens.{{sfn|Sapiro|1984|pp=9-10}} For example, Nellie Grant, daughter of President Ulysses S. Grant, reacquired her US nationality in 1898 by an Act of Congress, after a divorce from a British husband.{{sfn|Kerber|1998|p=41}} The confusion caused by the 1907 statute was definitively ended with the passage of the Expatriation Act of 1907, which tied all wives' nationality to that of their husband.{{sfn|Sapiro|1984|p=10}} 2) The passage of the Cable Act in 1922 granted limited individual nationality to married women. It was dependent upon her husband's ability to naturalize and if she had lost her nationality because of marriage and lived abroad, whether she could return to the United States to be naturalized.{{sfn|Hacker|2014|p=59}} 3) Under the Civil Rights Act of 1866, children born on US soil were nationals, regardless of the status of their parents.{{sfn|Stevens|1933|p=61, Part II}} Children born abroad could not derive nationality from their mothers until 1934.{{sfn|Kerber|1998|p=43}}{{sfn|Volpp|2005|p=420}} 4) Children born abroad outside of wedlock have different requirements for deriving nationality depending on if the US-national parent was their father or mother.{{sfn|Augustine-Adams|2001|p=103}}{{sfn|Spiro|2015|p=11}}
 * {{dts|1934}}{{sfn|Orfield|1934|p=110}}
 * 1) The US Nationality Act of 1934 contained provisions allowing Puerto Rican women who had lost nationality because of marriage prior to 2 March 1917 to repatriate.{{sfn|Bredbenner|1998|p=241}}
 * {{nowrap|{{flagdeco|US}} United States
 * {{dts|1855}}{{sfn|Sapiro|1984|p=3}}
 * {{dts|1855}}{{sfn|Kerber|1998|p=41}} (see details (1))
 * {{dts|1922}}{{sfn|Batlan|2020|p=324}} (see details (2))
 * not applicable
 * {{dts|1866}}{{sfn|Stevens|1933|p=61, Part II}} (see details (3))
 * X mark.svg (see details (4))
 * {{dts|1934}}{{sfn|Orfield|1934|p=110}}
 * 1) While the Naturalization Act of 1855 specified that foreign wives gained US nationality, the law created confusion as to whether it applied to American women who married aliens.{{sfn|Sapiro|1984|pp=9-10}} For example, Nellie Grant, daughter of President Ulysses S. Grant, reacquired her US nationality in 1898 by an Act of Congress, after a divorce from a British husband.{{sfn|Kerber|1998|p=41}} The confusion caused by the 1907 statute was definitively ended with the passage of the Expatriation Act of 1907, which tied all wives' nationality to that of their husband.{{sfn|Sapiro|1984|p=10}} 2) The passage of the Cable Act in 1922 granted limited individual nationality to married women. It was dependent upon her husband's ability to naturalize and if she had lost her nationality because of marriage and lived abroad, whether she could return to the United States to be naturalized.{{sfn|Hacker|2014|p=59}} 3) Under the Civil Rights Act of 1866, children born on US soil were nationals, regardless of the status of their parents.{{sfn|Stevens|1933|p=61, Part II}} Children born abroad could not derive nationality from their mothers until 1934.{{sfn|Kerber|1998|p=43}}{{sfn|Volpp|2005|p=420}} 4) Children born abroad outside of wedlock have different requirements for deriving nationality depending on if the US-national parent was their father or mother.{{sfn|Augustine-Adams|2001|p=103}}{{sfn|Spiro|2015|p=11}}
 * X mark.svg (see details (4))
 * {{dts|1934}}{{sfn|Orfield|1934|p=110}}
 * 1) While the Naturalization Act of 1855 specified that foreign wives gained US nationality, the law created confusion as to whether it applied to American women who married aliens.{{sfn|Sapiro|1984|pp=9-10}} For example, Nellie Grant, daughter of President Ulysses S. Grant, reacquired her US nationality in 1898 by an Act of Congress, after a divorce from a British husband.{{sfn|Kerber|1998|p=41}} The confusion caused by the 1907 statute was definitively ended with the passage of the Expatriation Act of 1907, which tied all wives' nationality to that of their husband.{{sfn|Sapiro|1984|p=10}} 2) The passage of the Cable Act in 1922 granted limited individual nationality to married women. It was dependent upon her husband's ability to naturalize and if she had lost her nationality because of marriage and lived abroad, whether she could return to the United States to be naturalized.{{sfn|Hacker|2014|p=59}} 3) Under the Civil Rights Act of 1866, children born on US soil were nationals, regardless of the status of their parents.{{sfn|Stevens|1933|p=61, Part II}} Children born abroad could not derive nationality from their mothers until 1934.{{sfn|Kerber|1998|p=43}}{{sfn|Volpp|2005|p=420}} 4) Children born abroad outside of wedlock have different requirements for deriving nationality depending on if the US-national parent was their father or mother.{{sfn|Augustine-Adams|2001|p=103}}{{sfn|Spiro|2015|p=11}}

Dual nationality other than in Uruguay, began to be accepted from the 1970s in Latin America, for example, in Panama (1972), Peru (1980), El Salvador (1983), Colombia (1991), Dominican Republic (1994), Costa Rica and Ecuador (1995), Brazil (1996), and Mexico (1998). Argentina, Chile, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Paraguay only allow dual nationality for countries with which they have signed specific treaties.{{sfn|Jones-Correa|2001|pp=998-999}}

Canada and the United States
Nationality legislation for Britain did not extend beyond the bounds of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland until 1911. This resulted in various colonies passing nationality regulations which applied to local jurisdictions and conflicted with other places in the realm. For example, a person who was naturalized in Canada would be considered a foreigner, rather than a British national, in Australia, Britain, or South Africa. Upper Canada passed a Nationality Act in 1849 requiring foreign wives to derive the nationality of their spouse. Quebec's Civil Code of 1866 had the same provisions. In 1867, the colonies of Canada, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia were united as the Canadian Confederation. The following year, a statute extended derivative nationality for foreign women to the rest of Canada. From 1869 to 1985, First Nations women in Canada who were Status Indians, under the provisions of the Indian Act, were required to follow the status of their husband. This meant primarily that if a Native woman married a person who was not a Status Indian, she lost their Native status. Until 1951, Indiginous registration applied only to Native males, who had Native blood with a tribal affiliation. His children or legal wife derived their Native status from their father or husband.

In 1881, the passage of the Act Respecting Naturalization and Aliens required all Canadian women to have the same nationality as their husbands. Following the British decision to implement a common nationality code across the realm in 1911, Canada passed the Naturalization Act of 1914, which entrenched dependent nationality until 1947, with two exceptions. Breaking with the idea of a common British code on the issue, Canada passed an amendment to its Nationality Act in 1931 which introduced the idea of consent, meaning that foreign women could only derive Canadian nationality from a husband, if she requested it. The amendment also provided that if a woman would become stateless because she did not derive her husband's nationality at marriage, she could not be denaturalized in Canada. Nonetheless, abolishing dependent nationality in 1947, did not repatriate those women who had previously lost their nationality until the law was amended in 1950.

With regard to children, Canadian law followed British law, meaning that legitimate children derived their nationality from their fathers and illigitimate children obtained their mother's nationality, until 1977. That year, new nationality legislation was passed to address discrepancies which had existed since Canada enacted independent nationality regulations from Britain in 1947. Some these Lost Canadians were descendants of people who died, such as servicemen, before Canada created a separate nationality policy from Britain. Provisions in the 1947 law provided Canadian nationality would be extened to Newfoundland, which joined Canada in 1949, and allowed non-aliens born in Canada who were British subjects to remain British, unless Britain determained they were ineligible. Also omitted from Canadian nationality were the children of women who had been denaturalized because of marriage to a foreigner or the naturalization of their spouse in a foreign country, or of war brides who came to Canada with their Canadian husbands and children, but who failed to register as Canadian. Others whose births were not registered and were not nationals included refugee children brought to Canada for adoption, children born in the Ideal Maternity Home, children born to rural mothers in hospitals at the US border, Indigenous children born to parents who feared their children would be removed and placed in residential schools and children born in Canada to immigrants ineligible for naturalization, like Chinese Canadians. The law of 1977 eliminated discrimination by legitimacy and prohibitions against dual nationality. Changes to the Indian Act in 1985 reversed requirements for Indigenous women to derive their nationality and Native status from their husbands, granted tribal governments the right to determine their own membership rules, and established procedures for women who had lost their status and their children to recover their status. Amendments to the nationality laws in 2005, 2009 and 2015 restored nationality to persons born abroad to Canadian nationals, war brides and their children, and the descendants of people who died prior to Canada developing its own nationality scheme in 1947.

Former French colonies
As a part of the French Empire, Haiti, known as Saint-Domingue, and the other colonies in the French Antilles were subject to the provisions of the Code Noir decreed by Louis XIV in 1685. The Code was designed to control the social relations between blacks and whites in the Caribbean, and was eventually extended to Louisiana in 1724. The code provided that freed persons were naturalized and contained provisions for manumission and emancipation of slaves. Though it did not prohibit the marriage of blacks and whites, it carried substantial fines for owners who produced illegitimate children with slaves, decreeing that the father had to give the child to a hospital as a slave who was ineligible for future emancipation, unless he married his slave woman in a church, automatically manumitting her and the children through the marriage. Children followed the status of the mother, regardless of the father's status, thus if she was a slave her children were slaves and if she was free her children were free.

In 1771, Médéric Louis Élie Moreau de Saint-Méry a magistrate in the northern district of the Saint-Domingue Court of Justice, compiled the manuscripts of legal documents into a compendium. In 1780, he was authorized by the Secretary of State of the Navy, the Marquis de Castries, to convert the compendium into a code. In 1784, the first of six volumes of the Loix et constitutions des colonies françaises ("Laws and Constitutions of the French Colonies") was published, which detailed all of the colonial laws issued between 1550 and 1784. He was unable to complete a formal Colonial Code before he left Saint-Domingue for France in 1788. Having separate codes for the colonies and metropole was a characteristic of the empire and created little unity and standardization in French law. Thus, the French Constitution of 1791, which gave legitimacy to the French Revolution and human rights protections by incorporating the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, did not include any of the colonies or possessions of France in Africa, Asia, or the Americas. In response, the Haitian Revolution began that year and lasted until independence from France was declared in 1804. The abolition of slavery in 1794 granted French nationality to all men in the French colonies, but the reestablishment of slavery in 1802, made the status of colonial subjects confusing. The 1802 Coup d'état of Napoleon Bonaparte rolled back gains made during the French Revolutionary period, re-establishing the law and customs in effect before the Revolution of 1789.

In 1805, the Napoleonic Code, the French Civil Code, was implemented in the French Antilles and French Guiana. The provisions contained in it applied only to the white French in the colonies, as the Code Noir was reimposed for people of color. Under the Civil Code, women were legally incapacitated and paternal authority was established over children. Upon marriage, a woman automatically acquired the same nationality as her spouse. Illegitimate children were barred from inheritance and nationality could only be transmitted through a father. Between 1805 and 1846, liberated slaves, those found on illegal slaving vessels, had a special status in the French colonies and were assigned to public works projects. Between 1831 and 1846, when the liberated slaves were freed, they worked as apprentices. In 1848 slavery was abolished for the second time. Freedom disrupted the social order, as it established patrilineal affiliations for family members. Simultaneously with the abolition of slavery, the Civil Code was extended to all of the inhabitants in the colonies of France.

From 1848, those persons who settled in the colonies and were from France were considered nationals who had full rights and were subject to French law. However, those born in the new territories were considered to be nationals without citizenship. The Nationality Law of 1889 allowed women who would become stateless to retain their French nationality upon marriage. When it passed, it specifically applied to the metropole, Guadeloupe, Martinique and Réunion, but was not extended to the other colonies until 1897. In 1927, France passed a new Nationality Law, which under Article 8, removed the requirement for married women to automatically derive the nationality of a husband and provided that her nationality could only be changed if she consented to change her nationality. It also allowed children born in France to native-born French women married to foreigners to acquire their nationality from their mothers. When it was implemented it included Guadeloupe, Martinique and Réunion but was extended to the remaining French possessions in 1928. In 1945, a new Code of French Nationality was passed, which conferred once again automatic French nationality on foreign wives of French men, but allowed mothers who were French nationals to pass their nationality to children born outside of France. It expressly applied to Algeria, French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Martinique and Réunion and was extended to the Overseas Territories in 1953, but in the case of the latter had distinctions for the rights of those who were naturalized.

With the passage of the Constitution of 1958, nationality provisions were standardized for France, Overseas Departments, and Overseas Territories. Revisions to the Nationality Code in 1973, included a provision that a child born in French territory derived French nationality if either of its parents were born in a French colony or territory, allowing for the possibility that the parent's place of birth might no longer be part of the French realm. It eliminated language in previous legislation differentiating between legitimate and illegitimate children, providing that if either parent was a French national the child was a French national. The 1973 Code also allowed the foreign husband of a French national to obtain French nationality by declaration, provided that he was living with his wife and adjudged to be able to assimilate to French culture.

The Republic of Haiti was granted independence from France in 1825, and that same year adopted a Civil Code, which was based on the French Napoleonic Code, with significant differences. Only people with African or indigenous blood could be naturalized. Nationality could be obtained through birth in Haiti or birth abroad to a Haitian, regardless of legitimacy. The 1843 constitution introduced the requirement for Haitian women married to foreigners to be denationalized and dispossessed of their property, although the children of such unions were considered to be Haitians. A law was passed on 30 October 1860 stating that marriage did not alter a woman's nationality, but reversed when the 1874 Constitution reinstated a provision for a Haitian woman married to a foreigner to acquire her husband's nationality. An 1884 amendment clarified that a Haitian woman who married a foreigner automatically lost her Haitian nationality and could repatriate only upon the death of her spouse and following the procedures for naturalization. For foreign women who married Haitian men automatically acquired Haitian nationality.

The Haitian Nationality Law was amended in 1942 and thereafter no longer required married women to lose their nationality. A new repatriation process did not require them to naturalize as a foreigner, allowing them to simply make a declaration in the prosecutor's office of the place of residence stating her desire to retrieve Haitian nationality. The Constitutions of 1964 and 1971 granted derivative nationality by choice to foreign women marrying Haitian men, but required that the marriage certificate renounce any other nationality. Haitian women were unable to pass on nationality to children legally recognized by their fathers until passage of the Nationality Law of 6 November 1984. Between 1984 and the passage of the 1987 Constitution, children born abroad to Haitian parents were considered foreigners unless both parents were Haitians.

Former British colonies
In the British Caribbean, ten nations recognized dual nationality from the time of their independence. These included – Antigua (1981), Barbados (1966), Belize (1981), Dominica (1978), Grenada (1973), Jamaica (1962), Saint Kitts and Nevis (1983), Saint Lucia (1979), Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (1979), and Trinidad and Tobago (1988).

Current situation
In all countries of South America, marriage is the basis for relaxed naturalization processes, typically meaning residency periods are shortened and in some cases the documentation necessary is reduced. With the exception of Paraguay and Uruguay each country allows repatriation through various legal processes if nationality has been lost. None of the countries in South America allow nationals from birth to be denaturalized, but naturalized persons can be deprived of their nationality for various offenses.

Europe
Individual nationality for women became law for women in France in 1927, Denmark and Sweden in 1950, Germany in 1953, the Netherlands in 1964, Finland in 1968, Spain in 1975, Portugal in 1981, and Greece in 1984.



International women's movement involvement
https://web.archive.org/web/20210329155644/https://uprdoc.ohchr.org/uprweb/downloadfile.aspx?filename=4777&file=EnglishTranslation https://issuu.com/coconets/docs/jiosfall13-2 https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/mjil22&div=25&id=&page= https://search-alexanderstreet-com.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/view/work/bibliographic_entity%7Cbibliographic_details%7C1462337#page/6/mode/1/chapter/bibliographic_entity%7Cdocument%7C1464749 https://search-alexanderstreet-com.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/view/work/bibliographic_entity%7Cbibliographic_details%7C1462336#page/6/mode/1 https://heinonline-org.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org:9443/HOL/Page?public=true&handle=hein.journals/stlenctzr1&div=25&start_page=307&collection=journals&set_as_cursor=3&men_tab=srchresults Sex discrimination in legal status began to be a focus of international women's groups in the first decades of the 20th century. In 1905, the International Council of Women added a demand to address women's nationality to its platform of women's issues. It was a logical segue for suffragists in international marriages like Harriot Stanton Blatch, Crystal Eastman, Ethel Mackenzie, and Inez Milholland to extend the idea that rights should not be curtailed by marriage to the fight for individual nationality. In 1907, the United States adopted the Expatriation Act, which automatically and retroactively bestowed a husband's citizenship status on any American-born woman who had married a non-citizen. Passage of the law began a mobilization of American women to fight against being deprived of their citizenship. By 1914, British women were also holding protests regarding nationality.

Rather than declining after the major push to attain women's suffrage in Europe and the United States, international women's groups diversified their agendas. While they struggled to unify on one single issue, and divisions of class, ethnicity, and race made cohesion difficult, from the end of World War I, international women's organizations were united by the idea that by working together, they could challenge their subordinate status to men as a human rights issue. The three major international organizations operating at the time were the International Council of Women, the International Alliance of Women, and the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) and they were joined by the All-Asian Women's Conference, Equal Rights International, the Inter-American Commission of Women (Comisión Interamericana de Mujeres, CIM), the International Federation of University Women, and the World Union of Women for International Concord in an effort to address women's nationality as a human rights issue.

At the Inter-Allied Women's Conference, hosted from 10 February to 10 April 1919 as a parallel conference to the Paris Peace Conference, women delegates brought up the issue of married women's nationality as an issue critical to defining peace terms because nationality was an international problem. Delegates of the Peace Conference rejected the idea in favor of each nation maintaining the ability to determine its own nationality requirements. Following the Paris conference, in May, WILPF hosted the Zürich Peace Conference and requested that an international commission be created by the League of Nations to research the question of matrimony between people of different nationalities. The following year, the International Alliance of Women formed a committee to study the issue and at its next Congress, in Rome in 1923, urged members of the organization's national chapters to pressure their governments to draft nationality laws that promoted equal treatment of spouses. They also sent a draft of proposals to be considered by the International Law Commission requesting that the League of Nations take action. In 1924, the International Council of Women's Congress held in Copenhagen unanimously resolved to promote international cooperation in addressing married women's nationality.

The Committee of Experts appointed by the League of Nations agreed to consider the matter in 1925 because of the large number of married women who had become stateless as a result of various political actions. Though the committee collected input from governments over the next two years on the legal issues, they did not seek any input from women's organizations. In 1927, Doris Stevens, who would serve as chair of the Pan-American Union's Inter-American Commission of Women from its creation in 1928 through 1938, became alarmed about the proposed conference to codify international law. Fearing that such action would continue imposing existing discriminatory laws on women's nationality, she agreed to research the subject of women's nationality on an international basis and provide a report to the conference on the behalf of women's organizations. Working with Alice Paul, a co-founder and leader of the National Woman's Party, she undertook a massive international study to determine how national laws affected women's nationality. She met with feminists throughout Europe, including Luisa Baralt of Havana, Ellen Gleditsch of Oslo, Chrystal Macmillan and Sybil Thomas, Viscountess Rhondda of the UK, the Marquesa del Ter of Spain, Elena Văcărescu of Romania, and Maria Vérone of France, as well as members of the International Federation of University Women and other groups. She also held public meetings with the purpose of gathering data.

In September 1927, Stevens went to Geneva to attend a preliminary meeting of the League of Nations, obtaining unanimous support from the delegates to review her report. She continued gathering data until January 1928 and then traveled to Havana to attended the Pan-American Conference. Stevens convinced the governing board of the Pan-American Union to found the Inter-American Commission of Women on 4 April 1928, with the express purpose of creating a report giving an overview of women's civil and political equality needs for the 1933 conference. By August, Stevens was back in Paris working on the report and along with other suffragists picketed the French president, Gaston Doumergue, to support an equal rights treaty. She gathered data in Berlin, Geneva, Havana, London, Madrid, Paris, Washington, D. C., and other cities. She and Paul and compiled a report comparing the laws of 77 countries. The complete document indexed all laws impacting women's nationality from each country. On one page, the law was given in the native language and on an accompanying page was translated. They also created an abstract with tables comparisons between countries. It was the first report ever to comprehensively analyze the civil and political rights of women in detail and it had been prepared solely by women.

On 13 March, 1930, Stevens went to The Hague for the first World Conference on the Codification of International Law, presented the abstract, and asked that the international community enact laws to protect women's nationality. Though the women attendees of the conference, led by Chrystal Macmillan, lobbied the 45 male delegates, from the beginning the men indicated little support and admitted they were allowing them to present their materials as a courtesy. Among the women who also spoke at the conference were Margery Corbett Ashby, British president of the International Alliance of Women; Lizzy van Dorp, a Dutch legal scholar and suffragist; and French lawyer Maria Vérone. When the delegates voted on the issue, only the United States delegation agreed to withhold approval of the nationality convention which proposed continuance of unequal existing laws for men and women. When the final draft Convention on Certain Questions Relating to the Conflict of Nationality Laws was presented only 30 of the 40 nations signed the nationality proposal and the women in attendance vowed to continue their efforts to ensure that it was not ratified with discriminatory policies toward women.

After the conference in October, Henni Forchhammer, Denmark's delegate to the League of Nations and a vice president of the International Council of Women, presented the issue of women's nationality to the League of Nations for the first time. She argued against accepting the World Code of Law because of its discriminatory provisions on women's nationality. She proposed that women's organizations be consulted on the issue and proposed a list of organizations. The League agreed to the proposal and in 1931, the Committee of Representatives of Women's International Organizations, known among the participants as the Women's Consultative Committee on Nationality, was established. The reports that the committee developed, advocating for individual women's nationality, between 1931 and 1932 were cautiously reviewed by both the League and the member governments. The International Union of Catholic Women's Leagues, led by their Dutch president Florentine Steenberghe-Engeringh, also tried to influence the League. They advocated for dependent nationality for spouses to protect family unity. Other Catholic women from St. Joan's Social & Political Alliance in London, refuted the need for unity of nationality for families, pointing out that the four South American countries which did allow separate nationality all recognized Catholicism as the State religion. Germaine Malaterre-Sellier, who served on the board of the French branch of the International Council of Women, collected petitions signed by 8,000 men and women advocating for individual nationality for married women and submitted them in 1932 to the League on behalf of the International Commission of Catholic Women for the Nationality of the Married Woman. The YWCA's International Migration Service also weighed in on the issue in 1932 with the League of Nations. Their position was that neither dependent or independent nationality would resolve the issues faced by migrants and that a pragmatic approach was needed. They proposed that married women be allowed dual citizenship, so that if circumstances arose which might threaten her nationality she could not become stateless.

In 1933, Stevens attended the Seventh Pan-American Conference, in Montevideo, Uruguay, to present their data to the 21 member countries. The women proposed the first international resolution to recommend suffrage for women, which was rejected, and presented their report outlining the disparity between rights of men and women in the Americas. After reviewing the data, the conference approved the Convention on the Nationality of Women, the first international agreement ever adopted to solidify women's rights. The text stated, "There shall be no distinction based on sex as regards to nationality". The conference also passed the Inter-American Convention on Nationality, also known as the Montevideo Convention on Nationality, which established that neither marriage nor divorce could affect the nationality of the members of a family, solidifying protections for children's nationality. Women's organizations urged the League of Nations to adopt a similar convention or allow member states to endorse the Inter-American Convention, in 1935.

In 1937, the Convention on Certain Questions Relating to the Conflict of Nationality Laws went into force and had provisions to eliminate the possibility of statelessness thereby preventing the possibility that a woman would lose her citizenship upon marriage if she was ineligible to be naturalized by her husband's country. It also solidified that a change in nationality could not occur without consent, nor could nationality be restored without the expressed request for same. The United Nations took up the issue of women's nationality, assigning the Commission on the Status of Women to study the problem in 1948. That year, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights confirmed the right to nationality, but did not secure equal nationality rights for women and men. Though the Commission on the Status of Women recommended action in 1949, 1950, and 1951 to take steps to protect married women's nationality and prevent their statelessness because of legal conflicts, no action was taken. They also recommended that nationality laws should not make distinctions between the sex of nationals and that neither marriage nor its termination impact nationality of spouses. Finally in 1952, the International Law Commission began work on a draft proposal. Independent nationality for married women would finally be elaborated in the 1957 Convention on the Nationality of Married Women. Member states were not compelled to change their civil and common law provisions, thus there are still states which have unequal nationality laws and require that a married woman has the same nationality as her husband.

National women's movement involvement (by continent)
https://core.ac.uk/reader/217207320

Africa
https://uprdoc.ohchr.org/uprweb/downloadfile.aspx?filename=4778&file=EnglishTranslation&usg https://documents.aucegypt.edu/Docs/GAPP/Citizenship_Report.pdf

Le Roux v Minister of Home Affairs and Immigration (2011 (2) NR 606 HC), successfully overturned the prohibition for those born as Namibians to hold dual nationality.

In 1980, the Federation of Voltaic Women began working on revisions to the Family Code and the new Persons and Family Code (Code des personnes et de la famille) was adopted in 1989, establishing gender equality in nationality laws.

https://core.ac.uk/reader/217207320 https://heinonline-org.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/HOL/Page?public=true&handle=hein.journals/branlaj33&div=20&start_page=293&collection=journals&set_as_cursor=22&men_tab=srchresults Unity Dow In 2021, Sithabile Pauline Mathe, instituted a legal challenge to Botswana's prohibition of dual nationality. Mathe claimed that the Citizenship Act of 1998 was discriminatory as it required her children to choose between their father's and mother's heritage and swear an oath of allegiance which was not required of other nationals considered Botswanan by birth. Judith Todd

Thandiwe Okeke v Minister of Home Affairs and The Controller of Immigration
 * https://heinonline-org.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/HOL/Page?public=true&handle=hein.journals/malawi2&div=21&start_page=209&collection=journals&set_as_cursor=0&men_tab=srchresults

https://web.archive.org/web/20130729140531/http://www.imow.org/wpp/stories/viewStory?storyid=1328 In 1996, the Constitutional Court declared Benin's previous family legislation, Coutumier du Dahomey (Customary Law of Dahomey) dating from 1931, unenforceable. Work began to change the Family Code, to promote equality in the rights and obligations of parents and change marriage and inheritance rules. Failure of the National Assembly to pass the new family regulations, prompted activists from Women in Law & Development in Africa-Bénin to launch a campaign including educators and students, human rights activists, trade unions, and women’s rights groups lobby for them to pass the legislation. On 12 April 2002, the campaign marched on the National Assembly and demanded a vote, though the legislators refused to allow them to enter. They called a press conference and ultimately the legislature approved the legislation on 7 June 2002. Though the law faced a constitutional challenge and modification, it went into effect in 2004.



Americas
Draft:Marcela Celorio, Elena Arizmendi Mejia https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/3641229.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A6a034f356eab258729abc678e560e481

In 2010, a new constitution entered into force in the Dominican Republic, under its terms nationality changed from jus soli to jus sanguinis. Under its terms, and Judgment 473/201 of the Constitutional Court of the Dominican Republic in the case of Juliana Deguis Pierre children of Haitian-Dominicans, even if registered previously were disqualified as nationals because their parents had not been nationals and were migrants. Her subsequent appeal led to a new Naturalization Law 168-13 in 2014, which repatriated 24,392 people, including Deguis, whose births had been registered as nationals of the Dominican Republic between 1929 and 2010. The law did not include an estimated 21,449 Haitian-Dominicans who had been born in the Dominican Republic but whose births were recorded as foreign.

Asia
https://scholarzest.com/index.php/ejrds/article/view/1713/1444 https://bebasnews.my/2021/10/27/can-a-child-born-out-of-wedlock-be-regarded-as-a-legitimate-child/ https://web.archive.org/web/20221025060434/http://journalarticle.ukm.my/17824/1/ARTICLE%206.pdf https://www.malaymail.com/news/malaysia/2019/03/27/why-malaysia-born-illegitimate-children-with-foreign-mothers-are-stateless/1736828 https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/malaysia-to-allow-automatic-citizenship-for-children-born-overseas-to-malaysian-mums https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/12259276.2018.1538646?scroll=top&needAccess=true Women's groups, including the Alliansi Pelangi Antar Bangsa (Rainbow Alliance Between Nations, APAB), Jaringan Kerja Prolegnas Pro Perempuan (Network for Pro-Women National Legislation Programme, JKP3), and Keluarga Perkawinan Campuran Melati (Jasmine Flower Community of Mixed Marriages, KPC Melati) began pushing from the return of democracy for legal changes on the nationality of women. Many of the activists were in trans-national marriages and were effected by the laws which in cases of divorce granted custody of the children to the father or did not allow mothers married to foreigners to pass their nationality on to their children. In 2006, these groups were successful in amending the Nationality Law No. 12 to allow children to derive nationality from their mothers and if their parents have different nationality, to hold dual nationality until they reach the age of eighteen at which time they must choose a single nationality. The modification also allowed an Indonesian woman the right to sponsor her foreign spouse for naturalization.



Dutch Empire
Dutch colonies followed the laws of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and had no separate nationality laws until 1910. The first codification of nationality, inherited from France, was based upon the Napoleonic Code and implemented in the Netherlands in 1809. The Dutch Civil Code legally incapacitated married women, making them legal dependents, and automatically bestowed upon a wife the nationality of her husband. It was revised in 1838, and established nationality provisions for persons within the territory of the Kingdom. In 1850, a Nationality Act was passed creating a nationality scheme, which provided differing rights to people living in the motherland and those living in the colonies. Those born in the Netherlands or descended of Dutch nationals had political rights and those who were native inhabitants in Dutch colonies were excluded from rights. The scheme was confusing, and was replaced by a new Nationality Act in 1892. Under its provisions, Nederlanders were people born in the kingdom or colonies to parents who were domiciled within the territories of the kingdom. Legitimate or legitimized children derived nationality from their father, and only illegitimate children could derive a mother's nationality. The Levysohn Norman Amendment prevented the provisions from applicability to the non-European population of the Dutch East Indies, as it required that a parent or grandparent had resided in the Netherlands.

On 10 February 1910 the Act on the Status of Netherlands Subjects other than Nederlander, was passed creating the citizenship regime for the Dutch East Indies. The terms of this act granted a status of second-class citizenship, known as "Dutch subject non-Dutch citizen" (Nederlands onderdaan niet-Nederlander), to natives of the East Indies. In 1927, the Act of 1910 was extended on 10 June to the Dutch Caribbean, Curaçao and Suriname. It was modified to provide that those born in the Dutch Indies, Curaçao, or Suriname, to parents domiciled in those colonies, or foundlings of unknown parentage, were subjects of the Netherlands. If the father was unknown, an illegitimate child derived the status of subject from its mother. The 1910 Act no longer applied to Indonesia after its independence in 1949, was abolished in the Caribbean and Suriname in 1951, and ceased to apply in Western New Guinea in 1962, when that region became part of Indonesia.

French Empire
https://heinonline-org.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/HOL/Page?public=true&handle=hein.journals/ajil5&div=22&start_page=325&collection=journals&set_as_cursor=27&men_tab=srchresults

The Ancien Régime of France developed a system of feudal allegiance in which subjects were bound together by a scheme of protection and service tied to land ownership. Possession of land was typically tied to military and court service and omitted women because they could not perform those obligations. Thus, French nationality also derived from place of birth in French territory, until the nineteenth century, but under feudal law married women were subjugated to the authority of their husbands under coverture. As a part of the French Empire, Haiti, known as Saint-Domingue, and the other colonies in the French Antilles (now known as Guadeloupe, Martinique, Saint Martin, Saint Barthélemy) were subject to the provisions of the Code Noir decreed by Louis XIV in 1685. The Code was designed to control the social relations between blacks and whites in the Caribbean, and was eventually extended to Louisiana in 1724. The code provided that freed persons were naturalized and contained provisions for manumission and emancipation of slaves. Though it did not prohibit the marriage of blacks and whites, it carried substantial fines for owners who produced illegitimate children with slaves, decreeing that the father had to give the child to a hospital as a slave who was ineligible for future emancipation, unless he married his slave woman in a church, automatically manumitting her and the children through the marriage. Children followed the status of the mother, regardless of the father's status, thus if she was a slave her children were slaves and if she was free her children were free.

Though attempts were made to codify the common law of the colonies in 1716, 1738, 1758, and between 1761 and 1768, none were successful. In 1771, Médéric Louis Élie Moreau de Saint-Méry a magistrate in the northern district of the Saint-Domingue Court of Justice, compiled the manuscripts of legal documents into a compendium. In 1780, he was authorized by the Secretary of State of the Navy, the Marquis de Castries, to convert the compendium into a code. In 1784, the first of six volumes of the Loix et constitutions des colonies françaises ("Laws and Constitutions of the French Colonies") was published, which detailed all of the colonial laws issued between 1550 and 1784. He was unable to complete a formal Colonial Code before he left Saint-Domingue for France in 1788. Having separate codes for the colonies and metropole was a characteristic of the empire and created little unity and standardization in French law. Thus, the French Constitution of 1791, which gave legitimacy to the French Revolution and human rights protections by incorporating the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, did not include any of the colonies or possessions of France in Africa, Asia, or the Americas. In response, the Haitian Revolution began that year and lasted until independence from France was declared in 1804. The abolition of slavery in 1794 granted French nationality to all men in the French colonies, but the reestablishment of slavery in 1802, made the status of colonial subjects confusing. The 1802 Coup d'état of Napoleon Bonaparte rolled back gains made during the French Revolutionary period, re-establishing the law and customs in effect before the Revolution of 1789.

In 1805, the Napoleonic Code, the French Civil Code, was implemented in the French Antilles and French Guiana. The provisions contained in it applied only to the white French in the colonies, as the Code Noir was reimposed for people of color. Under the Civil Code, women were legally incapacitated and paternal authority was established over children. Upon marriage, a woman automatically acquired the same nationality as her spouse. Illegitimate children were barred from inheritance and nationality could only be transmitted through a father. Between 1805 and 1846, liberated slaves, those found on illegal slaving vessels, had a special status in the French colonies and were assigned to public works projects. Between 1831 and 1846, when the liberated slaves were freed, they worked as apprentices. In 1848 slavery was abolished for the second time. Freedom disrupted the social order, as it established patrilineal affiliations for family members. Simultaneously with the abolition of slavery, the Civil Code was extended to all of the inhabitants in the colonies of France.

From 1848, those persons who settled in the colonies and were from France were considered nationals who had full rights and were subject to French law. However, those born in the new territories were considered to be nationals without citizenship. Nationals in the older colonies of the Antilles, Guiana, Réunion and parts of India and Senegal were granted political rights, but those in Algeria were confirmed by a decree on 14 July 1865 were to be subjects and not citizens, unless they renounced their allegiance to native custom and possessed sufficient understanding of the obligations of citizenship. Under the Code de l'indigénat (Code of Indigenous Status) promulgated for Algeria in 1881, nationals in the new colonies followed customary law. The Indigenous Code was extended to Cochinchina in 1881; New Caledonia and Senegal in 1887; Annam, French Polynesia, and Tonkin in 1897; Cambodia in 1898; Mayotte and Madagascar in 1901; French West Africa in 1904; French Equatorial Africa in 1910; French Somaliland in 1912; French Togoland in 1923; and French Cameroon in 1924. The Nationality Law of 1889 allowed women who would become stateless to retain their French nationality upon marriage. When it passed, it specifically applied to the metropole, Guadeloupe, Martinique and Réunion, but was not extended to the other colonies until 1897. Following the end of World War I France passed a law on 25 March 1915 that allowed subjects or protected persons who were non-citizen nationals of Algeria, Morocco, or Tunisia and had established domicile in a French territory to acquire full citizenship, including the naturalization of their wives and minor children, by having received the cross of the Legion of Honor, having obtained a university degree, having rendered service to the nation, having attained the rank of an officer or received a medal from the French army, who had married a Frenchwoman and established a one year residency; or who had resided for more than ten years in a colony other than their country of origin.

In 1927, France passed a new Nationality Law, which under Article 8, removed the requirement for married women to automatically derive the nationality of a husband and provided that her nationality could only be changed if she consented to change her nationality. It also allowed children born in France to native-born French women married to foreigners to acquire their nationality from their mothers. When it was implemented it included Guadeloupe, Martinique and Réunion but was extended to the remaining French possessions in 1928. A decade later, the legal incapacity of married women was finally invalidated. In an effort to amend marriage regulations in French Equatorial Africa and French West Africa, in 1939, the French government passed the Mandel Decree, to establish the principles of consent and standardize marriageable age. The decree invalidated the custom of child marriage and levirate marriage, unless the widow agreed. In 1945, a new Code of French Nationality was passed, which conferred once again automatic French nationality on foreign wives of French men, but allowed mothers who were French nationals to pass their nationality to children born outside of France. It expressly applied to Algeria, French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Martinique and Réunion and was extended to the Overseas Territories in 1953, but in the case of the latter had distinctions for the rights of those who were naturalized. The Jacquinot Decree of 1951, reasserted the provisions in the Mandel Decree and added clarifications that after the age of twenty-one, or a divorce, women were free of the control of their parent or guardian. It also established legal processes to determine bride prices, codifying formerly traditional customs into legal statues with penalties for non-compliance. With the passage of the Constitution of 1958, nationality provisions were standardized for France, Overseas Departments, and Overseas Territories. Revisions to the Nationality Code in 1973, included a provision that a child born in French territory derived French nationality if either of its parents were born in a French colony or territory, allowing for the possibility that the parent's place of birth might no longer be part of the French realm. It eliminated language in previous legislation differentiating between legitimate and illegitimate children, providing that if either parent was a French national the child was a French national. The 1973 Code also allowed the foreign husband of a French national to obtain French nationality by declaration, provided that he was living with his wife and adjudged to be able to assimilate to French culture.

Ottoman empire
https://books.google.com.mx/books?id=aUMHEAAAQBAJ&lpg=PT95&ots=BkQvkW9uWL&dq=beratl%C4%B1lar%2C%20protege&pg=PT92#v=onepage&q=beratl%C4%B1lar,%20protege&f=false

Within the Ottoman Empire, the government was organized to maintain harmony with disparate groups assigning responsibility to persons in accord with their position within those social categories. For six centuries, there was an internal organization that defined government functions for subjects by balancing religious and communal ties, with aptitudes and occupations without a centralized national ideology. Ottoman subjecthood was strongly tied to religion and non-Muslims, if they were ahl al-Kitāb (People of the Book), meaning Jewish, Christian, or Zoroastrian, could benefit from being subjects by agreeing to pay a tax to the sultan. Under a pact known as zimma, in exchange for paying taxes, the sultan allowed these subjects freedom of religion and guaranteed their lives, property, and rights with an understanding that they were legally entitled to less status than Muslim subjects. The pact was agreed to by the leaders of the confessional community, who managed the adherents and their internal organization under the religious law of their community.

By the eighteenth century a political organization, known as the millet, managed the affairs of their respective religious communities and developed into the protégé system (beratlılar, protected persons). Signing treaties with European powers, from the 1673 signing of a Capitulation with France, the Ottoman empire granted France control of certain Ottoman Christians, Austria control of some Ottoman Roman Catholics, most favoured nation status to British and Dutch traders, as well as specific rights to the Republic of Venice and Russian Empire. Under the terms of these treaties, foreign powers could recruit Ottoman subjects to serve their needs as commercial agents, consuls, or interpreters, and extend to these protégés diplomatic immunity from prosecution and privileges of trade, including lowered customs tariffs. Over time, abuses of the system led to a virtual monopoly of foreign trade by protégés, clandestine sales of letters patent (berats), and demands from foreign powers for protection to extend from individuals to entire communities. The influence on Ottoman subjects by European powers changed the perception of these minority groups in the empire, meaning that they were increasingly seen not as Ottoman subjects, but as resident aliens.

To curb the disruptive effects of Europeans in the empire, from 1806, the Ottoman government began sending communiques to the foreign embassies demanding compliance with the terms of their agreements. Failing to achieve success diplomatically, Mahmud II began a series of reforms to reorganize the government and centralize its authority and administration. In 1826, he abolished the Guild of Janissaries and established a modern army of conscripted subjects with the intent of creating a unified Ottoman identity. Once the army was reorganized, he began to abolish and transform the other guilds aiming to modernize the state. Mahmud II drafted the Edict of Gülhane, incorporating the observations of his foreign minister Mustafa Reşid Pasha. The Edict was designed to end bribery and corruption, and to create fair tax schemes and institutions to protect the basic rights of Ottoman subjects, but Mahmud II died in 1839 before it was promulgated. He was succeeded by his son Abdulmejid I, who continued the reforms of his father. In November, after Mahmud II's death, Reşid declared the Edict, first of the Tanzimat Edicts (Imperial Edicts of Reorganisation) in Istanbul's Gülhane Park to a gathering of ambassadors and dignitaries.

The Ottoman Reform Edict of 1856 (Islâhat Fermânı) categorized subjects by whether they were Muslim or non-Muslim, granting different civil statuses to each. In 1863, new regulations upon protégés restricted the privileges they received in the empire and clarifying who were thereafter considered to be Ottoman subjects and who were foreigners. This change, led to nationality legislation and the passage of the 1869 Ottoman nationality law (tâbiiyet-i osmaniye kanunnamesi). The law specified terms for the acquisition and loss of who was within the soverignty of the empire, rather than the domestic obligations and rights of citizenship. It described who was a subject, owing allegiance, and made provisions for wives, children, emigrants and immigrants. Under its terms, children derived nationality from their fathers, foreigners born in the territory could acquire nationality at majority, and foreigners born elsewhere could obtain nationality after five years residency within the imperial realm. Specific provisions included that foundlings discovered within the territory; stateless persons living in the empire; Muslim women, who despite the ban on such marriages, had married Persian men and the children of such a union; unregistered persons who had not been counted in the Ottoman census, either because no census was taken or their births were unregistered, were all considered to be Ottoman. Foreign women acquired Ottoman nationality through marriage, but could return to their original nationality upon the death of their spouse. Nationality could also be granted based on special contribution or service to the nation. Dual nationality was permitted, but was discouraged, as the government could choose not to recognize naturalization of an Ottoman subject by another state.

In 1873, a property law was passed forbidding foreign husbands and children from inheriting from a Muslim woman. Subsequently a law passed in 1883 to prohibit Ottoman subjects from inheritance if they had taken other nationality. These changes were made to curtail the types of extra-territorial abuses which had occurred under the protégé system. Amendments made to the Nationality Law in 1909 included conveyance of nationality to adoptees and to children born on ships in Ottoman waters. It also introduced in in Article 6 that foreign wives who acquired nationality by marriage could repatriate to their original nationality upon termination of the marriage; in Article 7 that foreign wives could only naturalize with their foreign husbands; and in Article 19 that women derived the nationality of their husband upon marriage. From 1909, Ottoman subjects were allowed to denaturalize with permission of the authorities, but doing so would result in banishment from the empire.



Portuguese empire
Portuguese law was first compiled in 1446 by the Afonsine Ordinances (Ordenações Afonsinas), which established that the law of the kingdom was based in statues, case law and custom. Revised in 1521 by the Manueline Ordinances (Ordenações Manuelinas), courts were granted the ability to interpret common law by opinion and create solutions for newly arisen situations. In areas of the kingdom without established High Courts, common law and local custom prevailed. Nationals were those born in the territory and leaving the territory without permission of the sovereign was grounds for denaturalization. In 1603, the Philippine Ordinances (Ordenações Filipinas) established that Portuguese nationals were children born on the Iberian Peninsula or adjacent islands, Brazil, or to an official in service to the crown in the Portuguese possessions of Africa or Asia, whose father was a native of Portugal, or whose mother was a native of Portugal and was married to a foreigner who had established domicile in Portugal for a minimum of ten years. Those who were not in service to the crown in the colonies (except Brazil) were not considered to be Portuguese. A child could not derive nationality directly from its mother unless it was illegitimate.

Portugal drafted its first constitution in 1822, which defined subjects of the Portuguese crown as the children of a male native to any of the territories of the kingdom. The nationality scheme laid out in 1603 remained mostly unchanged except for some clarifications, such as legitimate children of a Portuguese father or illegitimate children of a Portuguese mother born abroad could be nationals if they resided in Portugal and children born to a Portuguese mother and foreign father could only derive Portuguese nationality upon reaching their majority and requesting it. Two new provisions included that foundlings discovered on Portuguese soil were considered nationals, as were freedmen. Naturalization was only available to foreign men who married Portuguese women, and only if they had investments in the country or provided service to the crown. Denaturalization resulted from service to, or receiving benefits from, a foreign government, or obtaining other nationality. Society was male-oriented and male-dominated, and women's roles were isolated to family concerns keeping them separated from everyday realities of society. The father of a family was expected to provide for the well-being of his household. Women's legal status varied based upon their skin color. White women legally could serve as head of household absent the presence of the father figure, were able to administrate wills and inheritances, and could own land and inherit property. Slave and Amerindian women could seek arbiters to assist them in buying their freedom and could appeal to authorities for mistreatment. Any woman could petition the crown to assist them in legal disputes.

A new constitution was adopted in 1826 (which was in force from 1826 to 1828, 1834 to 1836, and 1842 to 1910) which granted nationality to anyone born on Portuguese soil. Birth by descent was accepted as establishing nationality, as long as the father lived in Portugal or was abroad in service to the monarch. Provisions stipulated that only illegitimate children could derive nationality from their mother and established that a nationality law was to define provisions for naturalization. The new nationality code was promulgated as the Decree of 22 October 1836, which established that grounds for naturalization included having reached majority, demonstrating adequate means of self-support, and having a minimum of two years residency, which could be waived if one had Portuguese ancestry. The Civil Code of 1867 reiterated similar nationality requirements to those that had previously been in effect, with the exception that a foreign woman, upon marriage to a Portuguese husband, automatically acquired Portuguese nationality. It also provided that Portuguese women who married foreigners lost their nationality, unless they would become stateless, and could not reacquire Portuguese status unless the marriage terminated and she lived in Portugal. It retained the provisions of the 1836 Decree for naturalization but increase residency to three years and added stipulations that applicants must have completed their military duties to their country of origin and that they have no criminal record.

The nationality requirements remained stable and did not significantly change again until 1959, when a new Nationality Law (Lei n.º 2098) granted nationality to anyone born Portuguese territory, unless the parents were foreign diplomats. Nationality if a child was born abroad could only be acquired automatically at birth if the Portuguese parents were abroad serving the crown; otherwise, nationality was at the discretion of officials and upon application required proof of that the birth had been registered in Portugal, that the applicant was domiciled in Portugal, and that they declared a desire to be a national. Married women continued to derive their nationality from their husband, with the exception that a woman could retain her nationality of origin if she specifically declared she did not want to be Portuguese and could prove that her country of origin allowed retention of her nationality after marriage.

Spanish empire
Nationality in colonial Spanish America was based in custom, rather than law. People born in Spain or Spanish America were considered to be members of the community and those born outside of those territories, whether of Spanish descent or not, were considered to be foreigners. Typically, naturalization was interpreted as personal, something granted to an individual, who met specified criteria. The first provisions for foreigners to be allowed to operate in Spanish territories were known as Carta de naturaleza, established by royal decree in 1567. Naturalization gave an alien the same rights as a native, but did not change their legal status as a foreigner. To obtain a carta, an applicant to the Council of the Indies had to confirm they had resided in the Spanish Empire for 20 years, had sufficient financial means to conduct business, and provide for their support and had been married to a native or a foreign national, who was born locally, for at least 10 years. Non-whites or non-Christians were excluded, unless they obtained a gracias al sacar, a royal certificate, which legally allowed them to operate as white persons, by limpieza de sangre (cleaning the blood). The ability to change races was an important consideration in the Americas because the majority of immigrants to the Americas were male, thus there was widespread racial mixing, and from 1514, a royal decree of Ferdinand II of Aragon encouraged mixed marriages as a way of creating a homogenous Spanish-Catholic society. From 1778, royal decree stipulated that marriages were to be contracted by equals. Further, in order to leave their possessions to an heir, as opposed to the crown, illegitimate mestizo offspring needed to be legitimized.

In colonial Latin America, as had been established by the Siete Partidas (Seven-Part Code) enacted by Alfonso X of Castile in the 13th century, families were organized with a male head of household, who controlled the power, required obedience, and provided support and protection. Married women were legally required to submit to their husband's authority to maintain family unity. Women had latitude to execute contracts and documents, such as wills, and were able to appear in court, but were required to obtain permission from a father or spouse, though consent was typically given. Women had equal property and inheritance rights; though administration of their assts was via the head of her household. Women were not considered to be legal citizens. Instead, a wife's obligation was to fulfill the social role of mother and spouse, care for the education and moral upbringing of her children and remain secluded in her home. Her public interactions were expected to correspond to these roles, meaning that she was allowed to participate in activities to care of the sick and those which provided moral uplift. Spain's first constitution, the Constitution of Cadiz, enacted in 1812, specifically recognized as nationals only "[a]ll free-men, born and bred up in the Spanish dominions, and their sons". Freedmen from Africa and foreigners residing within Spanish territory were permitted to naturalize as Spanish.

The law was passed during the period (1808-1814) when Ferdinand VII of Spain was detained in France and Spanish juntas were organized to govern during his absence. Ferdinand's return to power and proclamation to reestablish an absolute monarchy led to the Spanish American wars of independence. In 1814 upon returning to Spain from captivity in France, Ferdinand VII abrogated the constitution and reinstated an absolute monarchy, leading to independence wars throughout Spanish America. Revolution in 1820 reinstated the Constitution of Cádiz, but the return to power of Ferdinand in 1823, saw it suspended again. Instability in the Spanish empire continued until 1874 with periods of conflict followed by calm only to erupt into insurrection again. The Constitution of Cádiz was reinstated in 1836 and revoked a year later. Two Carlist Wars followed by the 1868 Revolution, led to a democratic experiment and the drafting of a new constitution in 1869. The constitution called for significant colonial reforms, but before they could be acted upon the Third Carlist War and subsequent restoration of the monarchy ended its authority. A new constitution was adopted in 1876, and in 1889 the first Spanish Civil Code was adopted. The Code was extended to Puerto Rico, Panama, the Philippines and Guam, establishing that nationality was acquired either from birth in Spanish territory or by descent from a Spanish national. Legitimate children could derive nationality from a father, but only illegitimate children could derive Spanish nationality from a mother, as a married woman was required to take the nationality of her husband. It also contained provisions for foreigners to naturalize.

The first constitutions of the nations of South America upon gaining their independence were written to include people born in the territory and exclude those born in Europe who might challenge the national sovereignty. Definitions emerged based upon who were nationals and who were foreigners. Rights of citizens differed based on these broad categories, excluding those who were criminal, illiterate, in debt, mentally incapacitated, or dependents, such as children, indentured persons or migrant workers, servants and women. To create a nation of ideal citizens, nationality was regulated through the lens of class, gender, and race. In opposition to colonial policies of exclusion, foreigners were welcomed in the early days of independence in Latin America and typically were regulated only by policies designed to protect the interests of the state. At the turn of the twentieth century, the former Spanish colonies had codified who were undesireables based upon fairly similar characteristics. These traits included those who were non-European, criminal, suffered from chronic disease, or were unable to support themselves, or who might threaten the social order. Many of the nations began restricting the immigration of those of African, Asian, Caribbean, Middle Eastern, or Ottoman origin, as well as nomadic peoples.

United States empire
Prior to 1898, all persons born in the possessions of the United States were treated as having been born in the United States, and upon acquisition, provisions were made for collective naturalization of the inhabitants. After that date, possessions were selectively judged to be foreign localities and not subject to the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Under the Insular Cases (1901–1922), the US Supreme Court ruled that unincorporated territories and insular possessions of the United States, which were not on a path toward statehood, had limited applicability of the U.S. Constitution. At the time, these included Guam, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico, acquired in 1898 at the end of the Spanish–American War. According to the decisions, those born in insular possessions or unincorporated territories were not eligible for citizenship, though they were considered nationals and could hold a U.S. passport and gain diplomatic protection from the United States. Specifically, in Downes v. Bidwell (182 U.S. 244, 1901) the Supreme Court found that possessions of the United States were not part of it constitutionally because they were "inhabited by alien races, differing from us in religion, customs, laws, methods of taxation and modes of thought and therefore the administration of government and justice, according to Anglo-Saxon principles, may for a time be impossible". Because of the rulings, all persons in the U.S. outlying possessions were considered U.S. non-citizen nationals. In Gonzales v. Williams (192 U.S. 1, 1904) the Supreme Court affirmed that non-citizen nationals were not aliens, or immigrants, causing Congress to pass in 1906, special provisions for persons born in unincorporated territories to naturalize in the United States.

Africa
already cited as: (United Nations Division for the Advancement of Women|Chinkin|2003|p=x) https://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/public/jun03e.pdf https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/black-women-and-international-law/african-women-and-the-gender-equality-regime-in-africa-from-patriarchy-to-parity/198633740775BFDEE43DEC096AB8F861 https://www.refworld.org/pdfid/54cb3c8f4.pdf https://www.unhcr.org/ecowas2015/Nationality-Migration-and-Statelessness-in-West-Africa-REPORT-EN.pdf https://www.unhcr.org/4cbc60ce6.pdf https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/uploads/d5d1d086-1a0d-4088-b679-003e09e9c125/citizenship-law-africa-third-edition-20160129.pdf https://academic-oup-com.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/book/2672/chapter/143096294?searchresult=1

Dependencies: Canary Islands Autonomous Community of Spain, Ceuta Autonomous city of Spain, French Southern and Antarctic Lands Overseas territory of France, Madeira Autonomous Region of Portugal, Melilla Autonomous city of Spain, Pelagie Islands Italian archipelago, Plazas de soberanía Overseas Territory of Spain, Réunion Mayotte Overseas region of France, Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha British Overseas Territory, Socotra Archipelago Governate of Yemen

Algeria
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Angola
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Benin
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Botswana
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Burkina Faso
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Burundi
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Cameroon
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Cape Verde
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Central African Republic
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Chad
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Comoros
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Congo
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Democratic Republic of the Congo
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Djibouti
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Egypt
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Equatorial Guinea
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Eritrea
moved

Eswatini
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Ethiopia
moved

Gabon
Gabonese nationality law moved

The Gambia
Gambian nationality law moved

Ghana
Ghanaian nationality law moved

Guinea
Guinean nationality law moved

Guinea-Bissau
Bissau-Guinean nationality law moved

Ivory Coast
Ivorian nationality law moved

Kenya
Kenyan nationality law moved

Lesotho
Basotho nationality law moved

Liberia
Liberian nationality law moved

Libya
Libyan nationality law moved

Madagascar
Malagasy nationality law moved

Malawi
Malawian nationality law moved

Mali
Malian nationality law moved

Mauritania
Mauritanian nationality law moved

Mauritius
Mauritian nationality law moved

Morocco
Moroccan nationality law moved

Mozambique
Mozambican nationality law moved

Namibia
Namibian nationality law moved

Niger
Nigerien nationality law moved

Nigeria
Nigerian nationality law moved

Rwanda
Rwandan nationality law moved

São Tomé and Príncipe
São Toméan nationality law moved

Senegal
Senegalese nationality law moved

Seychelles
Seychellois nationality law moved

Sierra Leone
Sierra Leonean nationality law moved

Somalia
Somali nationality law moved

Somaliland
Somaliland citizenship and nationality moved

South Africa
South African nationality law moved

South Sudan
South Sudanese nationality law moved

Sudan
Sudanese nationality law moved

Tanzania
Tanzanian nationality law moved

Togo
Togolese nationality law moved

Tunisia
Tunisian nationality law moved

Uganda
Ugandan nationality law moved

Western Sahara
Sahrawi nationality law moved

Zambia
Zambian nationality law moved

Zimbabwe
Zimbabwean nationality law moved

Asia
Asia: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09612025.2016.1163924

Afghanistan
Afghan nationality law moved

Armenia
Armenian nationality law

Azerbaijan
Azerbaijani nationality law moved

Bahrain
Bahraini nationality law https://www.jstor.org/stable/3012867



Bangladesh
Bangladeshi nationality law



Bhutan
Bhutanese nationality law

Brunei
Bruneian nationality law https://www.refworld.org/pdfid/5ccab7d67.pdf#page=2&zoom=auto,-24,718 https://www.refworld.org/pdfid/604257d34.pdf#page=2&zoom=auto,-24,776

Cambodia
Cambodian nationality law



China
Chinese nationality law



Cyprus
Cypriot nationality law



Georgia
Georgian nationality law Georgian nationality law is regulated by the Constitution of Georgia, as amended; the Citizenship Law of Georgia and its revisions; and various international agreements to which the country is a signatory. These laws determine who is, or is eligible to be, an Georgian national. The legal means to acquire nationality, formal legal membership in a nation, differ from the domestic relationship of rights and obligations between a national and the nation, known as citizenship. Nationality describes the relationship of an individual to the state under international law, whereas citizenship is the domestic relationship of an individual within the nation. Some countries use the terms nationality and citizenship as synonyms, despite their legal distinction and the fact that they are regulated by different governmental administrative bodies. Colloquially, as in most former Soviet states, citizenship is often used as a synonym for nationality, because nationality is associated with ethnicity. Georgian nationality is typically obtained under the principle of jus sanguinis, i.e. by birth to parents with Georgian nationality. It can be granted to persons with an affiliation to the country, or to a permanent resident who has lived in the country for a given period of time through naturalization.

Nationality in Georgia is typically acquired by birth to a Georgian or later in life through naturalization.
 * ==Acquiring Azerbaijani nationality==

Until the 2014 amendment changed nationality requirements, jus soli, birth in Azerbaijan was the primary basis for acquiring nationality. A reversal of that policy was prompted by fears of the actions of neighboring post-Soviet spaces and challenges to Azerbaijani sovereignty. If both parents of a child born in Azerbaijan are foreigners or if one parent is a foreigner and the other is stateless or unknown, the child is not considered to be Azerbaijani. Those who can acquire nationality by birth include:
 * ===By birth===


 * Children born anywhere to at least one parent who is an Azerbaijani national; or
 * Children born in Azerbaijan, if both parents are stateless.

Foreigners can apply for naturalization in Azaerbaijan provided that they have continuously resided in the country, being absent no more than three months, for at least five years from the issuance of a permanent residency permit or confirmation of refugee status. General provisions are that applicants have a legal income, have sufficiency in the Azerbaijani language, and respect the laws of the country. Applications for naturalization must be submitted to the State Migration Service (Dövlәt Miqrasiya Xidmәti) in Baku. Documentation must be presented to confirm that the applicant meets the residency requirements, has paid any taxes due to the state, has a certificate from the Ministry of Education verifying language proficiency, and documents which confirm the current nationality. Minor children follow the nationality of their parents, thus if a parent naturalizes and the child is under fourteen years old, the child automatically becomes Azerbaijani as long as both parents agree, or in the case that one parent is stateless. Naturalization is not allowed if the person has participated in activities that could damage the state, its territory or security, or the health, morality, or public order of the country; if they have been accused of attempting to overthrow or change the systems of the state or social order; or if they have participated in terrorism or activities that would foment hostility on the basis of race, religion, or ethnic superiority. The President of Azerbaijan is the final authority on who is admitted as a national of the country. Those who are admitted as nationals must swear that they have no civic obligations outstanding to other states and take an oath of allegiance. Other persons who can acquire nationality by naturalization include:
 * ===By naturalization===


 * Foundlings or orphans whose parents are unknown, after an administrative process;
 * Adoptees of Azerbaijani nationals upon completion of a legal adoption if requested;
 * Children between the ages of fourteen and eighteen who consent to be naturalized at the time that their parents are naturalized;
 * Children who did not gain Azrbaijani nationality when their parent(s) nationality changed, through an administrative procedure;
 * Persons who are current residents of Azerbaijan and who were nationals of Azerbaijan or the Azerbaijan SSR or who were born in the country prior to the 1998 Citizenship Act coming into force, but who did not gain nationality under the Act and have remained in the country;
 * Refugees or forced migrants who entered the country between 1988 and 1992, through an administrative procedure;
 * Persons with exceptional skill in the arts or culture, science, sport, or technology, whose contributions may be beneficial to the country may naturalize without meeting naturalization requirements; or
 * Persons who the state deems to be of special interest or those who have rendered significant service to the nation may naturalize without meeting other requirements.

Azerbaijani are allowed to renounce their nationality, provided that comply with registration processes. The government may oppose if the applicant has outstanding civic obligations to the state, persons, or legal entities, or is involved in a criminal proceeding. Nationals can be denaturalized for obtaining other nationality; for serving in the government administration or armed services of a foreign country; for committing crimes against the state or state security; for actions related to religious extremism or terrorism including recruitment; or for fraud, misrepresentation, or concealment in acquiring nationality. Loss of nationality involves a legal proceeding in Azerbaijan, rather than being a process of the operation of law. Persons who have previously lost their Azerbaijani nationality may repatriate as long as they meet the requirements to naturalize.
 * ==Loss of nationality==

Azerbaijan does not recognize dual nationality and it can be grounds for criminal prosecution. Persons who acquire another nationality are required to notify the authorities within thirty days or risk denturalization and/or payment of fines under the Criminal Code. Humans have been present in the territory now known as Azerbaijan since Paleolithic times. From the ninth century BC semi-nomadic Scythian peoples began settling in the region and within a century, the Medes, an ancient Persian people, had conquered the southern part of what is Azerbaijan. For much of the history of the territory, was ruled by successive Persian Empires. The Median Empire was defeated in the region by Cyrus the Great in the sixth century BC and then in the fourth century BC by Alexander the Great, who called the area Caucasian Albania (or Albanoi) and retained the Persian satraps as governors. In ancient Persia the king had absolute authority as the administrator of his subjects and armies, the giver of law, and the supreme judge of the empire. The centralized government of the empire was divided into satrapies, or provinces, for ease of management and taxation. Local satraps had no control over the military forces in their region to prevent them diluting the power of the ruler, but they managed the civilian administration over the areas for which they governed. Ethnic groups had legal autonomy to regulate their own internal conflicts. Rulers were responsible for security in the realm and management of the economy. In exchange for protection, Persian subjects paid taxes and owed loyalty to the king and his leadership. Marriage in the period was cum manu meaning the wife was legally incapacitated and under the control of her husband.
 * ==Dual nationality==
 * ==History==

When Alexander's Macedonian Empire collapsed, Caucasian Albania became a vassal state of the Seleucid Empire in the second century BC. Between the fourth and third centuries BC the union of tribes throughout the Caucasus formed the Kingdom of Albania. Roman annexation of Albania occurred between the first and third centuries AD, but as Rome declined, Persia re-established vassalage over the kingdom, first through the Parthian Empire and then its successor, the Sasanian Empire. By the forth century, the Sasanians and Byzantine Empire, successor state to Rome, were in conflict which caused a gradual decline and the eventual collapse of the Sassanid empire in the last half of the seventh century. At that time, Arabs brought Islam to the area and annexed Arran, as they called the former territory of Caucasian Albania, to the Abbasid Caliphate. Arabic rule continued through the eleventh century. In the Islamic state, subjects were defined by religious allegiance and loyalty to a ruler was as a result of his membership in the confessional community and his religious position, meaning that religious and political principles and offices were inseparable. Leaders served as religious and administrative authorities, teaching doctrine and acting to settle disputes, maintain order, and provide economic benefits to their communities. In exchange, subjects were committed to the leader and the defense of Islam. Women were required to have a guardian, either their father, a relative, or the sultan, who gave her in marriage. After marriage, she was required to be obedient to her husband's authority over her.

From the ninth century, the Shirvanshah Kingdom became dominant in the northeastern region of the territory lasting through the sixteenth century. The Kingdom was strongly influenced by the Turko-Persian Seljuk Empire, which had invaded in the eleventh century from Central Asia and ended the dominance of Arab rule. The Mongol Empire invaded in the thirteenth century, subjugating the Shirvanshah Kingdom to the Il Khanate, when the Mongols divided their empire in 1256. The Il Khanate returned the region to Islamic practices but with predominant Persian cultural influences, which were retained by the Turko-Mongol Timurid Empire which was dominant between 1370 and 1405. Upon the collapse of the Timurids, two successive Turkic tribes ruled the area until it was returned to Persian dominance under the Safavid Empire in 1501. The Safavids were the predominate power in the area until 1722.

From the beginning of the eighteenth century, conflict emerged between the Safavids and Ottoman Empire for control of the territory. These struggles weakened the Safavid Empire, which then came under attack by the Russian Empire. In 1722, Peter the Great led a campaign that established Russian dominance in the Northern Caucuses, including the northern part of Arran. Though the Persians retained control over the southern regions of Arran successive wars resulted in continuous loss of territory to the Russians and by 1828 all remaining Persian possessions in the Caucasus had been ceded to Russia. In Russia, persons residing in the territory of the empire were known as "poddanstvo" (subjects) and were under obligation of absolute subjection to the Tsar until 1917. Subjects were neither allowed to emigrate nor naturalize in a foreign state. The policy emphasized the collective nature of the community, which was jointly responsible to pay tax, provide labor, and share in the harvest to the landlord and state. Foreigners could not enter the country without the approval of the Tsar and were restricted to reside in specific areas and wear identifying clothing.
 * ===Persian, Ottoman, and Russian conflicts (18th-19th centuries)===

Groups which were prohibited from becoming Russian subjects included Dervishes, Jesuits, Jews, and married women, unless their spouse was Russian. Treaties and trade agreements defined the extraterritorial jurisdiction of foreigners residing in the nation and gave foreigners special privileges, like exemptions from paying taxes, the right to practice their religion, and freedom of movement. From 1721, the only requirement for naturalization of foreigners in the Russian Empire changed from conversion to Russian Orthodoxy to swearing an oath of allegiance to the Tsar. The following year a decree was issued which confirmed that sons born in Russia to foreigners in service to the Tsar were automatically subjects of Russia. Russian policy on territorial annexation up to 1860 was that all persons living in such a territory automatically were conferred Russian nationality, but the rights of citizenship of these groups varied based upon ethnicity, religion, and social status.

From 1864, naturalization required a five-year residency. Persons who were in service of the nation, who invested funds that benefited Russia, or who had unique ability or scientific knowledge could acquire nationality with a reduced residency period. Children born to foreigners in Russian territory could choose to acquire Russian nationality within one year of reaching majority, if they had been educated and grew up in Russia. Russian women who married foreigners were no longer Russian subjects and foreign women who married Russians automatically became Russian upon solemnization of a religious marriage. In 1879, Article 7 of the Treaty of Constantinople (1879) which was signed at the end of the Russo-Turkish War, set a precedent for annexation thereafter, establishing that residents could choose which nationality they wished to have after annexation terms were agreed upon. Persons who failed to express a desire within the allotted time frame to retain their existing nationality would automatically become Russian. An update to the nationality statutes in 1899 provided that children born anywhere to Russian parents automatically became Russian.

While the 1905 Russian Revolution did not spark an independence movement among the peoples in Arran, it did mark the start of the rise of political activity and ethnic identification. Upon the collapse of the Russian Empire in 1917, however, the provincial council declared the independence of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic in 1918. The Republic was backed by the Ottoman Empire and Ottoman troops remained in the territory until World War I ended, when they were replaced in late 1918 by British forces. In August 1918, the Azerbaijans passed the Act on Subjecthood, which defined subjects as those who were maternally descended from an Azerbaijani. One year later, the country passed a Law on Citizenship, which bestowed blanket nationality upon any former Russian subject who had been born in Azerbaijan. The statute did not permit dual nationality.
 * ===War and independence (1905-1920)===

In April 1920, the Red Army backed by supporters in the Azerbaijani Communist Party invaded the country. Though the government attempted to form a union with Persia, it was unable to come to terms and in September signed a treaty with Russia granting Russia control over its economy, foreign affairs, and military. In 1922, the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic was joined with the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic and Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic to form the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, which lasted until 1936 and was then separated into its constituent states. In 1924, the Soviet Union created a unitary nationality for all inhabitants of the various socialist republics. It presumed that anyone residing within the territory prior to enactment of the statute was automatically a Soviet national, unless they were able to prove otherwise. Under its terms, a child born to at least one parent who was a national of one of the Soviet republics was automatically a national of that republic, as well as the federation. If the parents were residing abroad at the birth of the child, the parents could chose to have Soviet nationality or other nationality. Neither marriage nor naturalization of one party automatically impacted a spouse or children; however, if both parents changed their nationality or renounced Soviet nationality children under the age of fourteen followed the parental nationality.
 * ===Soviet Azerbaijan (1920–1991)===

Each Soviet republic was allowed to determine who was eligible for naturalization in their territory. Naturalization gave them Soviet nationality, but did not automatically grant the rights of citizenship other republics. Renunciation of nationality was allowed upon obtaining permission from the Central Executive Committee of the Soviet Union. Nationals could be denaturalized for obtaining dual nationality, leaving federation territory without permission, or by a court order as a punishment for crime. An amendment (Law 581) in 1925 provided that persons who had been granted amnesty for service in the White Army and prisoners of war who had served in the Tsarist or Red Army who were abroad and failed to register with the Soviet Federation were deprived of their nationality, but could apply to be reinstated through naturalization. The mass denaturalizations of Russian people living abroad resulted in approximately 1.5 million stateless persons who were unable to acquire nationality in their places of residence under restrictive policies implemented globally in the interwar years.

In 1930, a resolution was passed specifying that all people within Soviet territory who did not prove that they were nationals of a foreign state were to be recognized as Soviet. In 1938 a new Soviet Nationality Law was passed to conform with the provisions of the 1936 Constitution of the Soviet Union. Under its terms, the soviet republics no longer defined nationality within their borders. Instead, nationality was acquired under the specifications of the Soviet law. Soviet passports indicated with which republic a national was affiliated and change of permanent residence automatically changed the state affiliation. The 1938 nationality law did not specify that nationality was acquired at birth through a Soviet parent and made no provisions for foundlings, leaving the possibility open that a child could be born stateless. It affirmed that those who had previously acquired Soviet nationality by being subjects of the Russian Empire and those who acquired it under prior laws remained nationals unless they had previously been denaturalized. It specified that persons who were permanent residents in Soviet territory but were foreigners without proof of other nationality were considered to be stateless, a reversal of the previous policy that they were automatically assumed to be Soviet. As a consequence, their children would also be stateless, unless they were allowed to naturalize upon reaching majority. In 1939, a resolution was passed which confirmed that laws which had previously been enacted but which countered the 1938 provision for statelessness were no longer valid.

A 1944 change to the Family Code repealed the right of a woman to sue for the father's identity and nationality to be bestowed upon a child born out of wedlock. The 1944 decree effected all applicable codes, making acquisition of nationality for an illegitimate child derivative of its mother. The result of the statute was that if the mother was stateless or foreign, the child, even if its father was known was unable to be a Soviet national. A decree in 1945 modified the provision slightly, determining that if the parents married the child could be recognized by its father on an equal footing as children born within the marriage. The age of the child was immaterial and their nationality became automatic, as if from birth. In 1977, the Soviet Union adopted a new constitution, which contained nationality provisions in Chapter 6, reaffirming that persons of any of the constituent states of the Union were Soviet nationals. A new nationality statute was created in 1978, which incorporated all previous legislation for acquiring nationality. It expressly prohibited both dual nationality and extradition of a Soviet national to a foreign state. The final Soviet nationality statute was adopted in 1990 and went into effect on 1 January 1991. Under its terms, children acquired nationality by being born to parents who were Soviet nationals. It was primarily notable for codifying, rather than leaving the grounds for denaturalization up to the discretion of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet. These included service to a foreign state or military, failure to register with a consulate while residing abroad, and falsifying information to obtain nationality. The law also changed the final authority on nationality decisions, moving the power to approve or deny from the Presidium to the president.

On 9 April 1991, Georgia declared its independence from the Soviet Union. Children born anywhere to Azerbaijani nationals acquired nationality at birth. Children born in the territory or born abroad to at least one parent who was a permanent resident of Azerbaijan also automatically became nationals, as did children born in Azerbaijan whose parents were stateless or unknown. The law contained no requirements for naturalization other than the filing of an application and taking of an oath of allegiance, but specified that applications could be rejected by the President of Azerbaijan for various actions that might harm the country. Nationals could renounce their nationality, if the state agreed that it would not be against the interests of the country and could repatriate upon application. Denaturalization was based upon a decision by authorities that a national was serving in the military or government administration of a foreign nation, was permanently residing abroad for more than five years, had acted in a manner to damage state interest or security, or had acquired nationality through fraud.

On 2 September 1991, the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast declared its independence from the Soviet Union, though legally it was part of Azerbaijan which was followed 18 October by an independence declaration for Azerbaijan. Under the terms of the proposed constitution, adopted with the independence declaration and awaiting approval through a plebiscite, as of 1 January 1992, anyone who was a registered resident in Azerbaijan on that date was automatically conferred nationality. Persons who were of Azerbaijani descent, who were not residing in the country on the effective date were not granted nationality. Afterward, anyone born in the territory of Azerbaijan or to at least one Azerbaijani parent acquired Azerbaijani nationality, but dual nationality was barred. On 10 December a referendum confirmed that 99.89 percent of the voters in Nagorno-Karabakh favored independence. The Soviet Union officially ended on 26 December and the fifteen former Soviet republics became independent nations. Azerbaijan's referendum on independence was held three days later on 29 December, and approved by 95 percent of the voters.

On 25 March 1993, Georgia passed a Citizenship Act, which went into force two days later. Transitional provisions included that those who were residing in the territory as of the effective date, who had not in the previous six month period rejected Georgian nationality and were permanent residents for at least give years became nationals. It also granted nationality to persons who had been born in the country but left after 21 December 1991, as long as they had not acquired any other nationality. For those born after the effective date, nationality was granted automatically at birth anywhere if both parents were Georgian. If only one parent was Georgian, a child acquired nationality if they were born in the country or if the other parent was stateless. Children born abroad to a parent who is a permanent resident of Georgia were eligible to acquire Georgian nationality at birth, as were foundlings and orphans discovered in the territory whose parents were unknown. Naturalization required a ten-year residency, an ability to communicate in the Georgian language, sufficient knowledge of the Georgian constitution and the country's history, and adequate income and/or assets to provide for their own support. Spouses of Georgians could naturalize after a three-year residency. Persons who were barred from naturalization included those who had committed crimes against the state or international crimes against humanity and peace. Persons could be denaturalized for obtaining dual nationality; for permanently living abroad without properly registering with a Georgian consulate; for serving in a foreign government administration, military or police service, or judicial body without the permissian of Georgian authorities; or for fraudulently obtaining Georgian nationality.
 * ===Post-independence (1991–present)===

An amendment to the nationality law was made on 2 March 2001, which specified that if a child was born abroad to one Georgian parent but both parents were permanent residents of a country other than Georgia, the parents had to reach a mutual agreement on the child's nationality, or in the absence of such an agreement the child acquired nationality based upon the rules of the country in which they were born.



India
Indian nationality law



Indonesia
Indonesian nationality law moved

Iran
Iranian nationality law https://www.jstor.org/stable/3012867

In ancient Persia the king had absolute authority as the administrator of his subjects and armies, the giver of law, and the supreme judge of the empire. The centralized government of the empire was divided into satrapies, or provinces, for ease of management and taxation. Local satraps (governors) had no control over the military forces in their region to prevent them diluting the power of the ruler, but they managed the civilian administration over the areas for which they governed. Ethnic groups had legal autonomy to regulate their own internal conflicts. Rulers were responsible for security in the realm and management of the economy. In exchange for protection, Persian subjects paid taxes and owed loyalty to the king and his leadership. Marriage in the period was cum manu meaning the wife was legally incapacitated and under the control of her husband.

The Achaemenid Empire collapsed in around 330 BC.

In 1494, the Safavid Empire was founded and began expanding from Persia on a quest to conquer and convert territories to Shia Islam. In 1514, battles began again between the Ottoman Empire and Safavid Persia for control of the South Caucasus. In Persia, the word "tabeiat", meaning allegiance, described legal belonging to the state, whereas, "meliat" , described ethnic identity and one's sociological context. Prior to drafting nationality laws, Persian nationality regulations were specified in treaties which defined the extraterritorial jurisdiction that other nations could exercise over their nationals within Persian territory. As early as 1600, Capitulations, also known as ahidnâmes, were granted by Persia to Britain, France, and the Netherlands, which gave those nations not only trade monopolies and privileges, but rights for protecting their nationals. Similar to the Ottoman arrangements, for example, France was given the exclusive right over Catholic inhabitants in Persia. Until 1764, persons belonging to the Persian state were referred to as subjects. That year, a treaty was signed with the Ottoman Empire which restricted Persian or Ottoman nationals from fleeing to each other's territory to change their allegiance. An 1822 statute prohibited marriage between Persian and Ottoman subjects.

Persian nationality continued to be defined by treaties into the nineteenth century and from the 1870s, was typically based upon the principal of jus sanguinis, or descent from a Persian father, regardless of what territory a person was born in. In 1875, the Ottoman-Persian Convention was signed giving each state reciprocal authority over their nationals residing in the other state. In 1890, a royal decree was issued that restored Persian nationality to widows who had lost their nationality because of marriage to a foreigner. In August 1894, the first nationality law was issued for Persia. Under its terms children born in Persia acquired nationality at birth if they were born to Persians, or upon reaching majority if they were born to foreigners. Persons born outside Persia continued to acquire nationality through descent from their father. Married women were required to have the same nationality as their husband, but upon termination of the marriage through death or divorce a foreign woman could reclaim her prior nationality. Adult foreigners could naturalize after a five-year residency, provided they had no criminal record or obligation to serve in a foreign military. The wife of a foreigner could not naturalize separately from her spouse. As the law did not allow Persians to renounce their nationality, without the consent of the ruler, persons who obtained other nationality might be denied entry into the country or be required to sell their assets in Persia. The prohibition against renouncing Persian nationality was an attempt to prevent Persians from obtaining special privileges as subjects of other nations under the agreements for extraterritorial jurisdiction. Persons who had formerly lost their Persian nationality were allowed to repatriate without a residency period.



Iraq
Iraqi nationality law https://www.jstor.org/stable/3012867 https://heinonline-org.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/HOL/Page?public=true&handle=hein.journals/ajil25&div=50&start_page=658&collection=journals&set_as_cursor=26&men_tab=srchresults https://heinonline-org.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/byrint7&id=101&collection=journals https://heinonline-org.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/HOL/Page?public=true&handle=hein.journals/ajil25&div=50&start_page=658&collection=journals&set_as_cursor=26&men_tab=srchresults



Israel
Israeli nationality law https://www.jstor.org/stable/3012867



Japan
Japanese nationality law https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057%2F9780230288256_8 https://www.jstor.org/stable/752247?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents



Jordan
Jordanian nationality law https://www.jstor.org/stable/3012867



Kazakhstan
Kazakhstani nationality law https://www.unhcr.org/4dfb592e9.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20130913224146/http://www.rijksoverheid.nl/bestanden/documenten-en-publicaties/ambtsberichten/2012/09/19/centraal-azie-2012-09-19-thematisch-ambtsbericht/thematisch-ambtsbericht-centraal-azie-september-2012.pdf



Kuwait
Kuwaiti nationality law https://www.jstor.org/stable/3012867



Kyrgyzstan
Kyrgyz nationality law https://www.unhcr.org/4dfb592e9.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20130913224146/http://www.rijksoverheid.nl/bestanden/documenten-en-publicaties/ambtsberichten/2012/09/19/centraal-azie-2012-09-19-thematisch-ambtsbericht/thematisch-ambtsbericht-centraal-azie-september-2012.pdf



Laos
Laotian nationality law



Lebanon
Lebanese nationality law https://elpais.com/elpais/2013/10/21/mujeres/1382328000_138232.html https://web.archive.org/web/20210301181944/https://journals.openedition.org/remmm/9031 https://www.jstor.org/stable/3012867



Malaysia
Malaysian nationality law



Maldives
Maldivian nationality law

Mongolia
Mongolian nationality law



Myanmar
Myanmar nationality law,



Nepal
Nepali nationality law https://web.archive.org/web/20210422105858/https://fwld.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Legal-Analysis-of-Citizenship-Law-of-Nepal-Citizenship-Report-English.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20130919134502/http://www.rijksoverheid.nl/bestanden/documenten-en-publicaties/ambtsberichten/2012/03/06/nepal-2012-03-05/algemeen-ambtsbericht-nepal-maart-2012.pdf



North Korea
North Korean nationality law



Oman
Omani nationality law https://www.jstor.org/stable/3012867 https://www.hrw.org/node/377179/printable/print https://www.refworld.org/pdfid/58dcfe444.pdf

During the reign (1807–1856) of Sultan Sayyid Said, Omani subjects (ra'īya) were recognized as all Africans, Arabs, and Kutchi people residing in Oman or Zanzibar. Upon the death of the sultan in 1856, a succession crisis occurred. The result was that the Sultanate of Zanzibar separated from Oman in 1861. Upon the separation, Sultan Thuwaini bin Said decreed that Lawati and Khoja people, regardless of whether they lived in Zanzibar or Oman, were his subjects because of their previous settlement in Oman. In 1865, Sayyid Majid bin Said, the first Sultan of Zanzibar, decreed that married women followed the nationality of their spouse, losing their Omani-Zanzibari status if the husband was foreign.



Pakistan
Pakistani nationality law



Philippines
Philippine nationality law



Palestine
History of Palestinian nationality



Qatar
Qatari nationality law https://www.jstor.org/stable/3012867 https://web.archive.org/web/20211227165810/https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/05/12/qatar-families-arbitrarily-stripped-citizenship https://web.archive.org/web/20220120202757/https://files.institutesi.org/UPR33_Qatar.pdf



Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabian nationality law https://www.jstor.org/stable/3012867 https://www.refworld.org/pdfid/3fb9eb6d2.pdf



Singapore
Singaporean nationality law



South Korea
South Korean nationality law http://klri.re.kr:9090/bitstream/2017.oak/6448/1/The%20South%20Korean%20Citizenship%20of%20North%20Korean%20Escapees%20in%20Law%20and%20Practice.pdf



Sri Lanka
Sri Lankan nationality law



Syria
Syrian nationality law https://www.jstor.org/stable/3012867 https://www.jstor.org/stable/41858152 https://heinonline-org.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/HOL/Page?public=true&handle=hein.journals/ajil25&div=50&start_page=658&collection=journals&set_as_cursor=26&men_tab=srchresults https://heinonline-org.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/byrint7&id=101&collection=journals https://heinonline-org.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/HOL/Page?public=true&handle=hein.journals/ajil25&div=50&start_page=658&collection=journals&set_as_cursor=26&men_tab=srchresults https://web.archive.org/web/20130915225928/http://www.rijksoverheid.nl/bestanden/documenten-en-publicaties/ambtsberichten/2012/05/22/syrie-2012-05-15/syrie-2012-05-15.pdf



Taiwan
Taiwanese nationality law



Tajikistan
Tajikistani nationality law https://www.unhcr.org/4dfb592e9.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20220203041520/https://reliefweb.int/report/tajikistan/unhcr-welcomes-tajikistan-s-new-law-tackling-statelessness https://web.archive.org/web/20130913224146/http://www.rijksoverheid.nl/bestanden/documenten-en-publicaties/ambtsberichten/2012/09/19/centraal-azie-2012-09-19-thematisch-ambtsbericht/thematisch-ambtsbericht-centraal-azie-september-2012.pdf



Thailand
Thai nationality law



Turkey
Turkish nationality law https://heinonline-org.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/HOL/Page?public=true&handle=hein.journals/ajil25&div=50&start_page=658&collection=journals&set_as_cursor=26&men_tab=srchresults https://heinonline-org.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/byrint7&id=101&collection=journals https://heinonline-org.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/HOL/Page?public=true&handle=hein.journals/ajil25&div=50&start_page=658&collection=journals&set_as_cursor=26&men_tab=srchresults https://web.archive.org/web/20130922151722/http://www.rijksoverheid.nl/bestanden/documenten-en-publicaties/ambtsberichten/2012/02/03/turkije---2012-02-03/turkije-2012-02-03.pdf



Turkmenistan
Turkmenistani nationality law https://www.unhcr.org/4dfb592e9.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20130913224146/http://www.rijksoverheid.nl/bestanden/documenten-en-publicaties/ambtsberichten/2012/09/19/centraal-azie-2012-09-19-thematisch-ambtsbericht/thematisch-ambtsbericht-centraal-azie-september-2012.pdf



United Arab Emirates
Emirati nationality law https://www.jstor.org/stable/3012867 https://web.archive.org/web/20220119130838/https://www.mei.edu/publications/breaking-citizenship-taboo-uae



Uzbekistan
Uzbekistani nationality law https://web.archive.org/web/20220119055515/https://www.unhcr.org/news/press/2020/3/5e70b9474/uzbekistan-end-statelessness-50000-people.html https://web.archive.org/web/20201127020228/https://cabar.asia/en/uzbekistan-simplified-procedure-for-obtaining-citizenship-what-changed-and-how-does-it-work https://web.archive.org/web/20130913224146/http://www.rijksoverheid.nl/bestanden/documenten-en-publicaties/ambtsberichten/2012/09/19/centraal-azie-2012-09-19-thematisch-ambtsbericht/thematisch-ambtsbericht-centraal-azie-september-2012.pdf



Vietnam
Vietnamese nationality law



Yemen
Yemeni nationality law https://www.jstor.org/stable/3012867 https://web.archive.org/web/20220122080533/https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/Treaties/CEDAW/Shared%20Documents/YEM/INT_CEDAW_NGO_YEM_19356_E.pdf https://irb-cisr.gc.ca/en/country-information/rir/Pages/index.aspx?doc=453288



Europe
In the decade that followed the end of World War I, individual nationality for married women was granted by the USSR (1918); Belgium and Estonia (1922); Sweden, Norway, and Romania (1924); Denmark (1925); Iceland (1926); Finland and France (1927); Turkey and Yugoslavia (1928); Albania (1929), and Spain (1931). https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/2190490.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A8e350929650c8781b3ef62c9c904ceab https://books.google.com.mx/books?id=5M1EAQAAMAAJ&lpg=PA52&ots=wWDLIisZ27&dq=Reyes%20Gnecco%20de%20Dugand%201888&pg=PA47#v=onepage&q=Reyes%20Gnecco%20de%20Dugand%201888&f=false https://www.jstor.org/stable/752247?seq=6#metadata_info_tab_contents https://www.academia.edu/11342825/European_Citizenship_in_the_Context_of_Gender_Equality_Legislation_in_Eastern_European_Countries_The_Case_of_Croatia?email_work_card=view-paper http://scholar.ceu.edu/sites/default/files/publications/ececompreport.pdf

Austria
An Austrian Jewish woman, Yella Hertzig, chose a marriage of convenience in 1938 during World War II to enable her to maintain her independence and travel. Upon marriage, she was granted Czech nationality. When the war ended, her Czech husband had died and she chose not to renew her passport. Although she was granted an Austrian visa by the Allied Control Council and applied for her Austrian nationality to be restored in 1945, she died as a stateless person three years later.



Belgium
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Machteld_Venken/publication/292103920_Gemengd_huwen_nationaliteit_en_de_verschillen_voor_mannen_en_vrouwen/links/57ad7da008ae3765c3bb3ad5/Gemengd-huwen-nationaliteit-en-de-verschillen-voor-mannen-en-vrouwen.pdf http://www.just-his.be/eprints/5716/ https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/2187513.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A9e558440d50c09c22b867c8ac0fae719 https://cadmus.eui.eu/bitstream/handle/1814/19603/RSCAS_EUDO_CIT_2013_27.pdf?sequence=3&isAllowed=y

Britain
https://www.jstor.org/stable/742756?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents https://www.jstor.org/stable/3070746?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents https://books.google.com.mx/books?id=NGq1Nh6h3X8C&lpg=PA105&ots=GbD7riubh9&dq=women's%20citizenship%20in%20canada&pg=PA11#v=onepage&q=nationality&f=false https://web.archive.org/web/20201112031938/https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/650994/Background-information-on-nationality-v1.0EXT.pdf

In Britain, allegiance, in which subjects pledged to support a monarch, was the precursor to the modern concept of nationality. The crown recognized from 1350 that all persons born within the territories of the British Empire were subjects. Those born outside the realm — except children of those serving in an official post abroad, children of the monarch, and children born on a British ship — were considered by common law to be foreigners. Marriage did not affect the status of a subject of the realm, but under common law, single women, including divorcées, were not allowed to be parents thus their children could not derive nationality maternally and were stateless unless legitimated by their father. Nationality Acts passed in 1708, 1730, and 1772 expanded those who were considered subjects to include the children of native-born fathers and grandfathers and allowed foreigners to naturalise by a private act of Parliament.

Britain did not establish a uniform slave code in its colonies. Instead, various colonies adopted slave statutes, for example Barbados in 1661, Jamaica 1664, and Antigua 1702, which addressed crime, policing, punishments, and rights, including marriage and legitimacy. Despite the lack of a common code, as was true in most slave societies, in the British West Indies, children followed the status of the mother, meaning if she was free her children were free and if she was in bondage, her children were bound. In 1807, the British Parliament passed the Slave Trade Act, barring the Atlantic slave trade in the empire. The Act did not abolish slavery, which did not end until the 1833 Emancipation Act went into effect in 1834. Under its terms, slaves were converted into apprentices and remained bound to their former owners for four years if they had worked in the home and for six years if they had been field labourers. Though free, there was never a British plan to give former slaves a voice in Parliament, leaving them as British subjects in a highly stratified system of rights. Denied political and economic rights, former slaves were not entitled to formal recognition as nationals by other nations.

In 1844, a Naturalisation Act was passed creating an administrative process, whereby the Secretary of State could naturalise applicants by collecting a fee and administering an Oath of Allegiance. The 1844 Act made no provisions for minor children, but it required a married woman to derive her status from their British husband. Thus, if a foreign woman's husband was native-born or naturalised, she automatically was British. British-born women maintained their status as British subjects, even if married to foreign men, under the 1844 statute. Because of confusion, an amendment was passed in 1847, confirming that the 1844 Act did not extend to British colonies.

In 1870 a revision to the Naturalisation Act required the automatic loss of nationality for British women upon marriage with a foreigner, regardless of whether she became stateless from the denaturalisation. She could re-aquire British nationality only by application for naturalisation, after the death of her spouse. The 1870 Act stipulated that minor children be automatically denaturalised if their father, or a widowed mother, lost their British nationality or naturalised in another country. As single women, including divorcées, under common law were not allowed to be parents, under the Act, their children could not derive nationality maternally. Naturalised British fathers, or widows, could not pass on their nationality to children born abroad, even if the parent was in service abroad to the crown. As with previous nationality acts, the legislation did not extend beyond the bounds of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. An amendment was made in the Naturalisation Act of 1895 to revise the section dealing with these children's automatic derivative naturalisation.

In 1911, at the Imperial Conference a decision was made to draft a common nationality code for use across the empire. Other than common law, there was no standard statutory law which applied for subjects throughout the realm, meaning different jurisdictions created their own legislation for local conditions, which often conflicted with the laws in other jurisdictions in the empire. Thus, a person who was naturalised in Canada, for example, would be considered a foreigner, rather than a British national, in Australia or South Africa. The British Nationality and Status of Aliens Act 1914 allowed local jurisdictions in the self-governing Dominions to continue regulating nationality in their territories, but also established an imperial nationality scheme throughout the realm. The uniform law, which went into effect on 1 January 1915, required a married woman to derive her nationality from her spouse, meaning if he was British, she was also, and if he was foreign, so was she. It stipulated that upon loss of nationality of a husband, a wife could declare that she wished to remain British and provided that if a marriage had terminated, through death or divorce, a British-born national who had lost her status through marriage could reacquire British nationality through naturalisation without meeting a residency requirement. The statute reiterated common law provisions for natural-born persons born within the realm on or after the effective date. By using the word person, the statute nullified legitimacy requirements for jus soli nationals. For those born abroad on or after the effective date, legitimacy was still required, and could only be derived by a child from a British father (one generation), who was natural-born or naturalised. Naturalisations required five years residence or service to the crown.

Amendments were enacted in 1918 to prevent British-born women from becoming enemy aliens and to relax provisions for children born abroad, allowing fathers abroad in service to the Crown to pass their nationality to their legitimate children. In 1922, the statute was replaced with a new British Nationality and Status of Aliens Act. The new act clarified that persons born before 1 January 1915 became nationals based on the provisions of the 1730 and 1772 Acts and that the 1922 Act was retrospective to that date. The statute allowed indefinite transmission of descent by a father to his legitimate children born on or after 4 August 1922, as long as a child was registered within the first year of its birth and upon reaching majority expressed a desire to remain British. For children born between 1 January 1915 and 4 August 1922, registration with a consulate before 1 August 1923 would allow derived British nationality to stem from their father or grandfather. Upon reaching the age of majority, the child was required to declare a desire to retain British nationality and revoke any other allegiance, if that were possible.

After the World Conference on the Codification of International Law held in The Hague in 1930, the British Parliament again drafted a new British Nationality and Status of Aliens Act in 1933, to conform with the provisions to prevent statelessness in the Convention on Certain Questions Relating to the Conflict of Nationality Laws. The primary effect of the new Act was to add language that a woman would not lose her nationality upon marriage if she became stateless. If by marriage, or if by her husband's naturalisation in another country, a British-born woman did not acquire her spouse's nationality she could remain British. The law was retroactive (not just to 1 January 1915), meaning any woman who had previously become stateless through marriage, was restored as a British national. The law also allowed a foreign wife of a naturalised British husband to choose whether she wished to take his new status within one year of the naturalisation. The 1943 revision allowed a child born abroad at any time to be a British national by descent if the Secretary of State agreed to register the birth.

In 1935, the Irish Free State adopted the Irish Nationality and Citizenship Act, establishing Irish nationality as a distinct status from British nationality. The law provided that marriage had no effect upon an Irish woman's nationality. In 1935 New Zealand adopted provisions from the Hague Convention of 1930 and modified their laws to allow New Zealand women to retain the rights of British nationals in New Zealand, even if they had become foreigners by marriage. Australia passed similar legislation to New Zealand the following year. In 1946, Canada passed the Canadian Citizenship Act redefining the order of nationality. The Canadian Act stipulated that Canadians were nationals of Canada first and only secondarily nationals of Britain. This served as a catalyst to restructure the nationality laws again and the British Commonwealth Conference on Nationality and Citizenship was held in 1947. In attendance were delegates from Australia, Burma, Canada, Ceylon, India, the Irish Free State, Newfoundland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Southern Rhodesia, the Union of South Africa and the UK. The goal of the conference was to establish guidelines for each Commonwealth nation to adopt laws conferring nationality upon the population in its territory from which British nationality would be derived. In other words, British nationality was dependent upon obtaining nationality in an independent Commonwealth country but would continue to serve as a common uniting principle for membership in the realm.

Under the terms of the British Nationality Act 1948 British nationals were reclassified into five categories: Citizens of the UK and Colonies (CUKC); nationals of independent Commonwealth countries; Irish-British citizens, who opted to remain British after Ireland's withdrawal from the Commonwealth; nationals of Commonwealth countries who had yet to define status for their populations; and British Protected Persons, who were people residing on foreign soil in mandated and trust territories, protected states, and protectorates, but were not treated as foreigners. Anyone not categorized by these divisions, was considered an alien, or foreigner. Other than the reclassifications, the basic nationality scheme did not change overmuch, and typically those who were previously defined as British remained the same. Changes included that wives and children no longer automatically acquired the status of the husband or father, children who acquired nationality by descent no longer were required to make a retention declaration, and registrations for children born abroad were extended. A new type of nationality acquisition, registration, was provided for in the Act, because of the change in wives' status. Believing that it was excessive to require foreign wives to naturalize, the registration system was devised to create a more streamlined process for those with an affiliation to the country. Those who could be registered included, wives of CUKCs, minor children of CUKCs, citizens of Commonwealth countries and the Republic of Ireland, and stateless persons or persons who had been deprived of British nationality. Transitional processes were also included for pending registrations of birth and naturalisation.

Adoption had not been addressed in previous nationality laws in Britain, but to enable ratification of the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, the Adoption Act of 1949, as amended in 1950, 1958, and 1968, and the British Nationality Act Amendment of 1964 provided measures for adoptees to gain nationality. The 1964 amendment also provided that foundlings going forward would be considered to have been born in the territory in which they were found.

The 1981 Act also eliminated gender disparities on who could derive nationality from a parent or spouse.



France
https://books.google.com.mx/books?id=1TXT8cVC_YsC&lpg=PA267&pg=PA267#v=onepage&q&f=false https://books.google.com.mx/books?id=GFpuDwAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&dq=The%20Family%20and%20the%20Nation%3A%20Gender%2C%20Nationality%20and%20Citizenship%20in%20Revolutionary%20France&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q=The%20Family%20and%20the%20Nation:%20Gender,%20Nationality%20and%20Citizenship%20in%20Revolutionary%20France&f=false Already cited (Camiscioli|1999|p=x) https://www.jstor.org/stable/42843081

Germany
http://aei.pitt.edu/63702/1/PSGE_00_5.pdf https://books.google.com.mx/books?id=Ma_mFARina4C&lpg=PP1&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false

Greece
https://www.athensjournals.gr/history/2017-3-2-2-Che.pdf

Ireland
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/666480/pdf https://www.jstor.org/stable/30007221?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/heritage/century/century-women-and-the-vote/denial-of-citizenship-1.553543 https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/citizenship-alienage-and-the-modern-constitutional-state/2C913E1B6147BDD08DDF151FC0ABA4BB (also South Africa, New Zealand and Australia)

Italy
https://www.taddone.it/a-perda-da-nacionalidade-de-mulheres-casadas-antes-de-1-1-1948/ Italian subjecthood was first declared during the Unification of Italy in 1861. As the states united, their former kingdoms and duchies ceased to exist and no alternative means of belonging had been devised. Thus, in March, 1861 the former Savoy-Piedmont-Sardinia Kingdom officially proclaimed that the former Piedmontese subjecthood was extended to the entirety of Italy. Inhabitants were afforded protection based upon their allegiance to the monarchy. Subjecthood was derived from an Italian father, and could only be derived maternally if the father was unknown. Birth in the territory was treated differently in different areas; in some states it conferred subjecthood, and in others it did not. Naturalization and denaturalization processes also varied depending upon the province. In 1865 laws from the various states was codified into national legislation, including a new civil code, which went into force on 1 January 1866.

Under the 1865 Civil Code, unity of the family was a driving foundation of the code, thus the emphasis was on descent. Nationality was derived paternally, regardless of where a child was born, unless the father was unknown. Foundlings born in the territory were presumed to have an Italian father and were granted nationality. Children born in Italy to foreigners who had lived in the territory for ten years, could acquire nationality at majority and those born in the territory to foreigners who did not meet the requisite residency could opt for Italian nationality at majority after service to the nation. Wives were required to follow the nationality of their husband. Italian women married to foreigners lost their Italian nationality and could only reacquire it if the marriage terminated and they established residence in Italy. Foreign women who married Italian men gained Italian nationality and retained it even after termination of the marriage. Nationality provisions were amended by Law 23 of 1901, which allowed children born in the territory or abroad who became foreigners because of a father's loss of nationality to acquire nationality without parliamentary intervention. Law no. 217 (known as Sonnino's Law), passed on 17 May 1906, allowed naturalization by royal decree if the Council of State supported the application and the applicant either resided in Italy or the colonies for six years, or had provided four years of service to the Italian state, or had been married to an Italian woman for three years.

Colonial subjecthood differed from that in the motherland. A civil code (L'ordinamento giuridico della colonia Eritrea) was drafted in 1911, for Eritrea but never officially entered in to force because it was required to be published in Amharic, Arabic, and Italian. Nonetheless, it was used as the guide and provided that persons born in or members of a tribe indigenous to the territory were Italian subjects but did not have the same civil rights as those born in Italy. If a colonial subject naturalized to attain civil rights, their status was intransmissible to other family members. Children born within a legal marriage between colonial subjects and metropolitan subjects automatically became Italian, though the majority of such unions were informal. Those children born outside of marriage, who were legitimated, or legally recognized and registered in official colonial birth records, were also automatically granted Italian nationality with full citizenship. Native women who married metropolitan Italians automatically acquired metropolitan status, but if a metropolitan woman married a native, she was able to retain her status, as it was deemed unlikely that she would be a dependent of a native man.

In 1912, Italy introduced new nationality provisions (Law No. 555) to address Italians living outside of the motherland. It did not challenge the tenet of unity of nationality in the family for metropolitan nationals, and bestowed Italian nationality by descent from an Italian father. But, if the child was born abroad in a country that automatically granted its nationality through jus soli, Italian nationality could be renounced at majority. Adding this provision allowed Italy to perpetually recognize the nationality of emigrants and foster a sense of belonging to Italy, even if expatriates chose to no longer act as citizens. For foreigners, it reduced the general residency requirement to five years, or three years if in service to the state. In 1914, to discourage marriages between colonial and metropolitan subjects, a decree was issued in Eritrea requiring civil servant to resign their posts upon marriage to a colonial. Three years later, Regent Governor in Eritrea Camillo De Camillis issued an instruction to attribute automatic metropolitan nationality to any bi-racial (meticci) child regardless of an acknowledgement of paternity.

Between 1922 and 1943, Mussolini's fascist regime expanded its territory in Africa, as well as states in the Mediterranean. Besides Eritrea, Italian territories included Ethiopia, Libya, and Somalia. A 1933 statute formalized the practice of allowing illegitimate mixed-race children to choose metropolitan status upon reaching their majority. In 1936, the territories of Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Somalia were combined into a single colony, Italian East Africa (Africa Orientale Italiana). In June, Italy began a redefinition of subjecthood for Italian East Africa. The new statute retained the provision that a colonial subject was one not descended of a metropolitan Italian or national of any other state. It also continued the policy of attributing metropolitan nationality to legitimate or legitimated children of an Italian father. But, it eliminated provisions for mixed-race children to opt for metropolitan status at majority. Further, a law passed in 1937 prohibited concubinage and another promulgated the following year banned formal marriages between metropolitan and native subjects. Legislation passed in 1940 barred conferring metropolitan status on mixed-race, illegitimate, legitimate, legitimated children, or children of unknown parentage, unless they had reached age thirteen that year, had been raised as an Italian, and could confirm their good character.

Women in Italy did not gain individual nationality until 1975.



Moldova
https://portal.vindburgerzaken.nl/StippWebDLL/Resources/Handlers/DownloadBestand.ashx?id=2000014282

Netherlands
https://resolver.kb.nl/resolve?urn=MMKB05:000037401:pdf https://books.google.com.mx/books?id=PPseXaPHxmwC&lpg=PA75&ots=JUxOmemkI2&dq=De%20nationaliteit%20van%20de%20gehuwde%20vrouw%20in%20Belgi%C3%AB%20en%20in%20Nederland&pg=PA75#v=onepage&q=De%20nationaliteit%20van%20de%20gehuwde%20vrouw%20in%20Belgi%C3%AB%20en%20in%20Nederland&f=false http://www.just-his.be/eprints/5716/ https://globalcit.eu/revision-of-the-netherlands-nationality-act/ https://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/public/jun03e.pdf

Russia
https://cadmus.eui.eu/bitstream/handle/1814/60230/RSCAS_EUDO_CIT_2012_1.pdf

Scandanavia: Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden
https://norden.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1197581/FULLTEXT03.pdf

Spain
https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/324049366.pdf http://www.ub.edu/ciudadania/hipertexto/evolucion/introduccion/civiles/civ1.htm https://revistaselectronicas.ujaen.es/index.php/rej/article/download/3210/2596/10815

Ukraine
https://www.globalcit.eu/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Ukraine.pdf https://portal.vindburgerzaken.nl/StippWebDLL/Resources/Handlers/DownloadBestand.ashx?id=2000014282

North America
Already cited (Vonk|2014|p=?): https://books.google.com.mx/books?id=Jo3PBAAAQBAJ&lpg=PA118&dq=nationality%2C%20bolivia&pg=PA119#v=onepage&q=nationality,%20bolivia&f=false

Antigua and Barbuda
moved

Aruba
moved

Bahamas
moved

Barbados
moved

Belize
moved

Bonaire
moved

British Overseas Territories
https://web.archive.org/web/20190528081501/https://cadmus.eui.eu/bitstream/handle/1814/33839/EUDO-CIT_2014_01_UK.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20181127091813/https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-44322874 British Overseas Territories include the Falkland Islands and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands in South America; etc....

Canada
Moved

Clipperton Island
Overseas state and private property of France

Costa Rica
moved

Cuba
moved

Curaçao
moved

Dominica
moved

Dominican Republic
moved

El Salvador
moved

Greenland
Autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark

Grenada
moved

Guadeloupe
moved

Guatemala
moved

Haiti
moved

Honduras
moved

Jamaica
moved

Martinique
moved

Mexico
moved

Nicaragua
moved

Panama
moved

Puerto Rico
moved

Saba
moved

Saint Barthélemy
moved

Saint Kitts and Nevis
moved

Saint Lucia
moved

Saint Martin
moved

Saint Pierre and Miquelon
moved

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
moved

Sint Eustatius
moved

Sint Maarten
moved

Trinidad and Tobago
moved

United States
moved

United States Virgin Islands
moved

Oceania
https://books.google.com.mx/books?id=-GIzkDtohqQC&printsec=frontcover&vq=Canada,+Law+of+Naturalization+and+Allegiance,+1868,+wives#v=onepage&q=Canada%2C%20Naturalization%2C%201871%2C%20wives&f=false (Colonization Circular 1871, p. 48) https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/4s36/soljak-miriam-bridelia http://www.nzjh.auckland.ac.nz/docs/2018/NZJH_52_2_02.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20210121122533/https://www.solomontimes.com/news/women-holds-consultation-for-draft-federal-constitution/2519

New Zealand introduced a measure to adopt the common code in 1914, but passage was postponed by the outbreak of World War I. War measures such as the Revocation of Naturalization Act and Registration of Aliens Act of 1917 left denaturalisation procedures regarding women vague. Provisions in the Revocation of Naturalization Act stated that revocation of an enemy alien's status did not impact his wife and minor children and the Registration Act merely required an alien to list the names and ages of his wife and children. However, an amendment to the Registration of Aliens Act in 1920 clarified that married women in New Zealand who lost their nationality because of marriage were required to register as aliens. Despite the lack of clear provisions in the law, women like Miriam Soljak were deprived of their nationality during the war. In 1923, New Zealand adopted the British nationality scheme, except for the provisions that naturalised people from throughout the empire were automatically British subjects in New Zealand, which they did not incorporate until 1928. Thus, effective from 1923, the law clearly specified that New Zealand women who married aliens lost their nationality upon marriage.

American Samoa
moved

Australia
moved

East Timor
moved

Fiji
moved

Guam
moved

Kiribati
moved

Marshall Islands
moved

Micronesia
moved

Nauru
moved

New Zealand
moved

Northern Mariana Islands
moved

Palau
moved

Papua New Guinea
moved

Samoa
moved

Solomon Islands
moved

Tonga
moved

Tuvalu
moved

Vanuatu
moved

Argentina
moved

Bolivia
moved

Bouvetøya
Dependency of Norway

Brazil
moved

Chile
moved

Colombia
moved

Ecuador
moved

French Guiana
moved

Guyana
moved

Paraguay
Paraguayan nationality law: Paraguay gained independence from Spain in 1811 and called a Constitutional Convention to draft the Government Regulations, the first governing documents of the independent nation. Approved by the Congress in 1813, the Regulations defined nationals as people born in the territory. It also recognized people born in other places in the Americas who resided in the nation and were ideologically aligned with Paraguayans. Women were excluded, as they were subordinated to the head of the family, who was authorized to act on behalf of the family unit. In 1842, the Law of Free Womb was passed, which was effective the beginning of the following year. It declared that all children born to slaves were not slaves, but obligated as libertos to work in service for their masters for 25 years for males or 24 years for females to earn their freedom. The law outlawed the slave trade in the territory and forbade the entrance of fugitive slaves to Paraguay. The 1844 Constitution, or the Paraguayan Political Administration Law, carried no definitions of nationals or foreigners. After its defeat in the War of the Triple Alliance, the majority of the population had been killed and the economy was destroyed.

To attract immigrants and rebuild the country, a new constitution was drafted in 1870. The 1870 constitution provided that birthright nationals were those born in Paraguay, children of birthright nationals living in Paraguay, and children born abroad to a Paraguayan serving the government. Foreigners could be naturalized after two years of residency provided they owned real estate or invested in industry, or engaged in a profession or art. Marriage by a foreigner with a Paraguayan or performance of service for the nation were grounds for the two year residency period to be shortened. in Article 25, slavery was abolished. In 1876, Paraguay adopted the Argentine Civil Code, with modification for local custom; however, like the Argentine Code, Paraguay's statue incapacitated married women, placing them under the authority of their husbands. The Marriage Code, drafted in 1897 reinforced women's inability to act in civil capacities, though it established civil marriage.

In 1903, Paraguay passed a restrictive immigration law which barred people of Asian and African descent, as well as nomadic people. In 1928, jurists concluded that a married woman did not lose her nationality upon marriage, as the constitution of 1870 mentioned neither alien wives married to citizens or Paraguayan wives married to foreigners, nor were there provisions for loss of nationality by marriage in the Civil Code. In 1933, Justo Pastor Benítez and María Felicidad González, the Paraguayan delegates to the Pan-American Union's Montevideo conference, signed the Inter-American Convention on the Nationality of Women, which became effective in 1934, without legal reservations. After the Chaco War, a new constitution was adopted in 1940. It recognized that nationality was derived from birth in the territory, birth abroad to a national, and by naturalization of a foreigner who had resided in the country for a minimum of five years. Loss of nationality could result from treasonous acts, illegal bankruptcy or becoming a national of another nation. In 1959, Paraguay signed a dual nationality agreement with Spain. A new constitution was adopted in 1967, maintaining a similar nationality scheme. For the first time, it introduced in Article 30 that neither marriage nor its termination resulted in a corresponding change of nationality.

Peru
moved

Suriname
moved

Uruguay
https://www.colibri.udelar.edu.uy/jspui/bitstream/20.500.12008/9518/1/TTS_Casa%C3%B1asMariaLaura.pdf http://www.scielo.edu.uy/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S2301-06652019000100422 https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:XYyJxgXBBuYJ:https://revistas.ucu.edu.uy/index.php/revistadederecho/article/download/843/846/3277+&cd=5&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=mx&client=firefox-b-d Uruguayan nationality law: The legal means to acquire nationality, formal membership in a nation, differ from the relationship of rights and obligations between a national and the nation, known as citizenship.

Uruguay attempted to gain its independence from Spain in 1820, but was unsuccessful in becoming independent and was incorporated into the Cisplatine Province of the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves. Brazil declared its independence from Portugal in 1822, establishing the Empire of Brazil under Pedro I. The first constitution, adopted in 1824, provided that Brazilian were free-born or emancipated men, who had been born in Brazil, unless their father was a foreigner in the service of another nation. Legitimate children born outside of the territory to a Brazilian father, or illegitimate children born to a Brazilian mother, could establish nationality by becoming domiciled in Brazil; however residence was waved if their father was in government service. Foreigners who resided in Brazil at the time of independence were naturalized by residence in the empire. Citizenship could be lost if one was naturalized in another country or accepted employment or honors from foreign governments without the approval of the crown. In 1825, the country again declared its independence and aligned with the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata, precipitating a three year war between Brazil and Argentina, which culminated in Uruguayan independence in 1828. The nation's first constitution was drafted in 1830 and provided that citizens were natural — free-born men, born within the territory — or legal — foreigners; parents of natural citizens; children born abroad to natural fathers or mothers who now resided within the country; and those who worked in art, science or industry or owned assets or property in the nation at the time of the establishment of the constitution. Man, as used in the constitution, excluded women.

In 1852 Uruguay attempted to write a civil code based upon the Napoleonic model, but it was never completed. The first Civil Code of Uruguay was completed in 1867 and went into effect the following year. It provided for the legal incapacity of married women and granted a husband marital authority over a wife's person and property. In 1890, Uruguay passed its first immigration law (Ley 2096), which carried restrictions prohibiting the immigration of Africans, Asians, Bohemians, and Hungarians. The law was amended in 1906 when the legislature, pressed by Syrian and Lebanese immigrants, removed migrants from Asia Minor as a prohibited group. From 1921, Uruguayan authorities were authorized to issue passports to married women were foreign but married to Uruguayans and had lost their nationality by virtue of marriage, with the stipulation that the issuance of the document did not confer nationality upon her. By 1928, it was the "official opinion" '''whose? legal? immigration? Seems like a court case possibly resulted in this decision?''' of the government of Uruguay that neither their constitution or laws addressed whether women lost their nationality by marriage. Based upon that decision, the position of the government was that marriage had no effect upon nationality in Uruguay. In 1933, the Uruguayan delegates to the Pan-American Union's Montevideo conference, signed the Inter-American Convention on the Nationality of Women, which became effective in 1934, without legal reservations.

Venezuela
https://heinonline-org.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/HOL/LuceneSearch?terms=A+Collection+of+Nationality+Laws+of+Various+Countries%3A+As+Contained+in+Constitutions%2C+Statutes+and+Treaties&collection=all&searchtype=advanced&typea=text&tabfrom=&submit=Go&sendit=&all=true http://acienpol.msinfo.info/bases/biblo/texto/boletin/1936/BolACPS_1936_1_3_4_119-134.pdf

Venezuelan nationality law: Venezuela gained independence from Spain in 1821, having declared its independence in 1811, and union with Gran Colombia in 1819. The the Colombian Constitution of 1821 was the founding document of Gran Colombia, which encompassed parts of what is now Ecuador, Colombia, Panama, and Venezuela. It defined as nationals free persons and their descendants, who were born in the territory; residents of the territory who supported its independence; and naturalized foreigners, who had been born elsewhere. In 1829 a commission was appointed to draft a civil and criminal code, but they were unsuccessful in completing it before Venezuela separated in 1830 from Gran Colombia and new codifying commissions were established. A new constitution for the state was drafted in that year granting nationality by birth in the territory or naturalization. Birthright nationals were free men born in the former Gran Colombia whose parents were Venezuelan or children born abroad to Venezuelan parents serving in an official capacity outside the territory. Automatic naturalization was given to foreigners residing in the country at the time of independence, who supported its independence. Other foreigners, or children born abroad to Venezuelan parents who were not serving the nation, could be naturalized by establishing a residence in the territory and officially declaring their intent.

Venezuela adopted twenty-six constitutions between 1811 and 1999, but there was little change in the nationality scheme. The Constitution of 1857, recognized nationals born abroad to Venezuelan parents without requiring residence in the territory and anyone born within Gran Colombian boundaries. Constitutional requirements were amended in 1863, requiring children born abroad to reside in Venezuela as a condition of birthright nationalism. It also extended the right to derivative birthright nationality to anyone born in the territories of the Spanish Caribbean and recognized dual nationality. In 1862 and again in 1867 draft Civil Codes were prepared which defined nationals and foreigners and included language that married women derived the nationality of their husbands, taken from the French and Italian civil codes. From the acceptance of the Civil Code of 1873 until 1942, loss of nationality upon marriage was the official policy of the nation.

From 1891, Venezuela excluded from immigration of people who were of Asian or African origin, specifically barring those from the Caribbean islands. The laws were amended in 1912 and again in 1918, to continue the prohibition and exclude generally those who were non-European. The Constitution of 1893 extended the right to children of naturalized citizens to acquire Venezuelan nationality by declaration of will, if they were residing in Venezuela. Changes in the Constitution of 1901 included confirmation that those from the Caribbean were unable to acquire birthright nationality, but extended the right to obtain birthright status for anyone born in Hispanic America who declared a willingness to become Venezuelan at the Civil Registry following formal procedures. Until 1904, birthright nationality was solely based upon birth in the territory and then from 1904 to 1947, it could be derived from birth in Venezuela or by descent from Venezuelan parents. This meant that any child born in Venezuela, whether its parents were foreign or natural, was given birthright nationality. A child born abroad to Venezuelan parents, as long as it was legitimate or legally recognized by the parent, was also deemed to have Venezuelan nationality. Naturalization or relinquishment of nationality of a foreign man during this period automatically changed the nationality of his minor children. As Venezuelan women could not independently obtain nationality, they could not similarly impact the nationality of their offspring, unless they were widowed.

From 1922, married women born in Venezuela, automatically regained their nationality upon termination of the marriage. Foreign women who had gained Venezuelan nationality by marrying automatically lost their nationality when the marriage ended unless they declared in the official manner a wish to retain Venezuelan nationality. The Constitution of 1947, granted birthright citizenship to foreigners' children, if the parent was working in service to the government and extended nationality to those born on airplanes or ships within Venezuelan airspace or waters. It also allowed children born abroad to Venezuelans to be registered with consulate officials to qualify for birthright nationality. When the military regime ended in 1958, a new constitution was drafted in 1961. It granted birthright nationality to anyone born within Venezuelan territory, regardless of whether the parents were nationals or even in the country legally. To those born abroad, both parents were required to be Venezuelan nationals for birthright nationality. It revoked the ability to have dual nationality; changed the status for people born in Latin America, allowing them to naturalize upon request; and allowed women married to Venezuelan men, children of naturalized persons who been minors but had reached majority, and adoptees to naturalize by request. The latter two categories, were required to make their request prior to their twenty-fifth birthday and reside in Venezuela. Race disappeared as an exclusion in the nationality laws for immigration in Venezuela in 1966.