Nationality - Dual Nationality

Dual Nationality

Dual nationality is when a single person has a formal relationship with two separate, sovereign states. This might occur, for example, if a person's parents are nationals of separate countries, and the mother's country claims all offspring of the mothers as their own nationals, but the father's country claims all offspring of the fathers.

Nationality, with its historical origins in allegiance to a sovereign monarch, was seen originally as a permanent, inherent, unchangeable condition, and later, when a change of allegiance was permitted, as a strictly exclusive relationship, so that becoming a national of one state required rejecting the previous state.

Dual nationality was considered a problem that caused conflict between states and sometimes imposed mutually exclusive requirements on affected people, such as simultaneously serving in two countries' military forces. Through the middle of the 20th century, many international agreements were focused on reducing the possibility of dual nationality. Since then, many accords recognizing and regulating dual nationality have been formed.