SLP 12 (2017)

SUMMARY The issue of nationality or citizenship belongs to the traditional area of international law as well as national law. Traditional questions are coming back again and new challenges are emerging. They are linked to the development of law and courts’ practice at national, regional and universal levels. At the same time, nationality is an institute where national laws and regulations may intersect and come into conflict with international law. It must, therefore, be subject to an examination both from the point of view of national law, e.g. constitutional law, and from the point of view of international law. It is understandable that there is room for different, sometimes even incompatible, views. They relate not only to the certain aspects of the legal regulation, the interpretation of the rules on acquisition and loss of nationality, but also to their consequences, namely, the rights and benefits deriving from nationality. Certain inconsistency, or uncertainty, concerns even the conceptual points. This publication includes, in addition to Introduction, 15 chapters divided into four thematic parts. The first part is titled Theoretical Questions of Nationality . It consists of three chapters. Chapter 1 by Dr. Pavel Ondřejek deals with the transformations of citizenship as a legal institution. It uses a more general point of view of systems approaches to law (Luhmann, Canaris). The main topic represents an analysis of relations between legal regulation and social reality. This analysis opens up a wide range of legal theoretical issues, from the autonomy of law to the relations of law to other normative systems. The main aim of the chapter is to illustrate possibilities of systems approaches to law in solving complex questions flowing from the pluralist relations between legal orders and the corresponding problem of interaction among normative systems. An adequate answer to the key legal theoretical question to what extent is law being changed by facts, is provided by Luhmann’s theory, mainly in his thesis about the cognitive openness of law. At the same time, the chapter shows that a thesis about normative closure of law has difficultly tenable in situations of simultaneously applicable legal systems and sources of public authority. The aim of Chapter 2 by Dr. Josef Mrázek is to provide a legal analysis of the distinction between “nationality” and “citizenship”. International law mostly uses the term “nationality” to refer to a legal relationship between an individual and a state. Both terms are often used interchangeably as synonyms. In some countries (mainly the UK and the US), a distinction is made between these notions. The right to nationality is a human right. Nationality has various legal consequences, including personal jurisdiction and diplomatic protection. International instruments generally use the terms “national” and “nationality”. Most countries of “Central and Eastern Europe” use the term “citizenship”. The European Convention on Nationality and most states of West Europe use “nationality”. As a rule, “citizenship” rests on top of “nationality”. Citizenship means the political status of an individual, incorporating his constitutional

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