Uruguayan nationality

Acquired only through birth and never lost

By William Wetherall

First posted 15 June 2014
Last updated 1 July 2014

Citizenship without nationality Uruguay's 1957 nationality reservation • Citizenship and suffrage articles in Uruguay's Constitution • Alainis et al. on Uruguayan nationality • 1908 Naturalization Convention Between the United States and Uruguay

Citizenship without nationality

The usual and unfortunate habit of writers about nationality and citizenship is to conflate the terms, as though they have the same meaning. Even writers who go to the trouble to preface their conflation with a cautionary reminder that the two terms are fundamentally different are apt to consider citizenship -- narrowly associated with rights of suffrage -- follows nationality, hence possession of the "nationality" in most states today is tantamount to being a "citizen" of the state.

This is partly due to the influence of countries like the United States, in which the "citizen" and "citizenship" are the dominant legal expressions for membership and rights of membership in the state's sovereign nation. In the United Stations, "national" and "nationality" are relatively unfamiliar terms among the general public, which in any event is likely to associate "national origin" and "nationality" with race or ethnicity.

Journalists and scholars who write in English about Japan are likely to ignore, if even they are aware of, the fact that Japan's domestic laws define only "national" and "nationality" and not "citizen" or "citizenship" as effects of possessing Japan's nationality. Writers aware of the distinction are apt to "naturalize" Japanese "national" and "nationality" into English "citizen" and "citizenship" simply to accommodate their readers, as though their readers might not want to understand that not all legal systems speak in the same metaphors.

This is not merely a translation problem but a problem of recognizing the differences in legal systems. Local metaphors need to be taken seriously. The metaphors of Uruguayan nationality and citizenship laws are another case in point. Uruguay's distinction between "nationality" and "citizenship" literally upsets the notion that citizenship derives from nationality.

The conventional notion that citizenship derives from nationality, hence nationality is equivalent to citizenship, is actually very limiting, for this precludes the possibility -- constitutionally legalized in Uruguay -- that "citizenship", if meaning rights of suffrage, has nothing to do with "nationality" and that aliens as well as nationals can be "citizens" of a state.

Uruguayan law also stands conventional wisdom in its head by entirely separating the notions of "dual nationality" and "dual citizenship" -- and permitting the former but not the latter.

By now you are wondering -- how is this possible?

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Uruguay's reservation to 1957 nationality convention

Article 3 of the 1957 Convention on the Nationality of Married Women makes the following provision for the alien wife of a national to acquire "his" (sic) nationality through eased naturalized procedures.

The of Paragraph 1 is fairly clear. Article 6 of Japan's 1950 Nationality Law was already in compliance with this provision for relaxing the requirements for naturalization of an alien wife. Article 5 relaxed requirements for an alien husband but not as much. Article 7 of the 1985 revision of the 1950 Nationality Law relaxes naturalization requires for the alien spouse -- husband or wife.

Uruguay's reservation to Article 3

Uruguay signed the Convention on the Nationality of Married Women on 20 February 1957, only 3 weeks after it was opened for signature, It has not ratified the convention, but when signing it made the following reservation to Article 3 (underscoring and [clarifications] mine.

  On behalf of Uruguay we hereby make a reservation to the provisions of article 3 which has a bearing on the application of the Convention [on the Nationality of Married Women]. The [5th] Constitution of Uruguay [1952-1967] does not authorize the granting of nationality to an alien unless he is the child of a Uruguayan father or mother, in which case he may become a natural citizen. This case apart, an alien who fulfils the constitutionality and legal conditions may be granted only legal citizenship, and not nationality.

In other words, Uruguay makes a clear distinction between "nationality" and "citizenship". "Nationality" is acquired only at time of birth and is never lost. Even if a natural citizen takes up residence and naturalizes in another country, they retain their Uruguayan nationality, they rights as "natural citizens" are activated simply by residing in Uruguay and registering in its Civil Register (Registro Cívico).

On the other hand, "legal citizenship" is acquired through approval by an Electoral Court only by aliens who are able to show that they are substantially domiciled in Uruguay. And Uruguay -- which has no objection to multiple "citizenship" defined as rights of suffrage -- will issue its alien "legal citizens" a Uruguayan passport, which depending on the laws of their country of nationality, may became a "second passport" in addition to their original passport. However, maintenance of status as a "legal citizen" requires certifiable evidence of a minimum period of residence in Uruguay each year. And "legal citizenship" is lost through "naturalization" in another country.

Two kinds of "citizens"

Uruguay defines two kinds of citizens in its constitution -- "natural citizens" (ciudadanos naturales) and "legal citizens" (ciudadanos legales).

Natural citizens

Natural citizens are people who acquired Uruguayan nationality through birth under jus soli if born within Uruguay, and through ambilineal jus sanguinis if born outside the country. Hence all children born in Uruguay are natural citizens, except the children of diplomats and other foreigners in the country as servants of the government of another country. And all children born outside Uruguay to a Uruguayan father or mother become natural citizens -- so long as their Uruguayan parent is not a citizen who was born outside Uruguay.

Legal citizens

Legal citizens are foreigners who qualify for "legal citizenship" (ciudadanía legal).

Constitution

Uruguayan nationality and citizenship are essentially defined and governed by relevant articles in its national constitution (see next). In other words, Uruguay's "nationality law" is embedded in its constitution. A number of other laws have been passed to deal with issues that arise from interpreting the constitution.

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Constitution of the Oriental Republic of Uruguay

The qualifications for natural and legal Uruguayan citizenship are stipulated in Section III (Articles 73-81) -- pertaining to "Citizenship and Suffrage" (De la Ciudadania y del Sufragio) -- in Uruguay's constitution.

The following representation of Section III shows the Spanish text of selected articles, and an unofficial English translation of all articles, which I have pieced together from various Internet sources.

Spanish text

The Spanish text represents the Spanish version of the Uruguay's 1967 (6th) constitution as ammended through 2004.

English text

The English text represents the 1967 constitution as ammended through 1996.

1952 (5th) and 1967 (6th) constitutions

The articles of Section III in the 1967 (6th) constitution -- their numbering and wording -- are identical to those of Section III in the 1952 (5th) constitution.

Markup and commentary

All underscoring, and all [blue bracketed] commentary and red highlighting, in both the Spanish and English texts, are mine. All uncolored [bracketed] particulars in the English text are as received.

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Alainis et al. on Uruguayan nationality

Alainis, Massa, and Carrasco shed some light on Uruguay's distinction between "natural" and "legal" citizenship in the following book.

Walter Tomas Howard Alanis, Santiago Altieri Massa, and Mercedes Otegui Carrasco
Family Law in Uruguay
Alphen aan den Rijn (The Netherlands): Kluwer Law International, June 2011
292 pages

Chapter 5, Nationality, begins with these two observations (Alanis et al., 2011, page 71, Items 124 and 125).

The "definition" slightly but insignificantly departs from the wording of the unofficial English version (see below).

The authors note that a 1989 law clarified that children born outside Uruguay to a Uruguayan parent who was also born outside the country did not have Uruguayan nationality. This means, they added, that only the 1st generation of Uruguayan nationality is transmitted only to the 1st generation of foreign-born offspring.(Item 126, page 71).

Statelessness   This also means -- though the authors don't say so here -- that 2nd-generation foreign-born offspring of two foreign-born Uruguayan parents stand to become stateless if born in Japan, which does not have a provision for attributing Japanese nationality to children born in Japan who are unable to acquire the nationality of either parent.

Alanis et al. also cite a critique of the Uruguayan distinction between "natural" and "legal" citizenship as erroneous, since even "natural" nationality is legally defined. To put it somewhat differently -- nationality, as a status, is an artifact of law. (Item 129, page 72)

The authors, after examining the legal process that results the an alien acquiring Uruguayan citizenship, remark that "As can be anticipated, Uruguayan nationality is attributive to citizenship."

"Nationality" as an attribute   The authors would seem to be inverting the usual notion that citizenship derives from nationality. That is, the phrase ""Uruguayan nationality is attributive to citizenship" would appear to mean that Uruguayan nationality follows or comes with legal citizenship, as an effect of qualifying for the constitutional right of an alien to be come a legal (as opposed to a natural) citizen. This refers to a different kind of "nationality" -- the sort of nationality associated with passports -- not the "natural" nationality defined by the Uruguayan constitution.

Legal citizens can obtain Uruguay passports, though application procedures are stricter than for natural citizens.

Uruguayan citizens applying for renewal of a Uruguayan passport at a Uruguayan consulate have to submit (1) current passport, (2) Cedula de Identidad (I.D.), (3) Local police record (clearance letter), (4) Recent passport photograph in color on white background, eyeglasses removed, and (5) Application form and fee. However, "legal citizens" are additionally required to present their (6) "Carta de Ciudadania" (citizenship document), (7) "Credencial Civica" (Voting ID), and (8) proof that no other citizenship has been acquired (such as a green card if in the United States, or a residence card if in Japan, or a visa in their Uruguayan passport to show that they legally entered the country as a Urugyanan).

Uruguayan passports, in compliance with international standards, shows that the bearer possesses the "NATIONALIDAD / NATIONALITY" of "URUGUAYA" -- but this is a matter of the this is not the "nationality" referred to in the Constitution. This is the legal attribute of nationality, which has currency in international law. It is not the "nationality" the constitution ascribes to natural citizens.

There is, after all, a reason why Uruguay's constitution, and Alanis et al., do not describe the process of becoming a legal citizen as "naturalization" -- for that would be a misnomer. Unlike Japan's nationality law, in which aliens truly "naturalize" -- i.e., they gain a legal status equal to that of natural-born Japanese nationals -- in Uruguay, the quality of "legal citizenship" is inferior to the quality of "natural citizenship", to a degree comparable with -- but not nearly as liberal -- as "naturalization" in, say, the United States.

The inability of foreigners to obtain Uruguayan nationality is stressed in the next item (Alanis et al., 2011, page 72).

"American legal systems" refers to legal systems in the Americas -- north, central, and south -- which generally make provisions for what their domestic laws refer to as "naturalization". Naturalized citizens of American states generally have political and other rights on a par with most other citizens, but the quality of naturalized citizenship varies from state to state. The first part of Article 2 of the Constitution of the United States places the following restrictions on edibility for the presidency.

No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

Japan's 1950 Nationality Law makes no differentiation in the quality of nationality of any of its nationals. Except for a remark in the family register of a naturalized person which cites the date and other particulars of the Ministry of Justice certificate of permission to naturalize, the nationality status of a naturalized nation is unmarked. The particulars of naturalization in the family register are functionally no different from the particulars of birth in the registers of nationals who were born into Japanese nationality, or from the particulars of acquisition later in life through, say, parental (paternal or maternal) acknowledgement, or pursuant to transitory measures in revisions of the Nationality Law, such as those that came into effect from 1985 and 2009. See relevant versions of Japan's Nationality Law in the "Nationality" section of this website for details.

Nationality conflicts

Alanis et al. continue in this vein as they describe other features of the citizenship articles in Uruguay's constitution, including the stipulations in Article 81, the last Article of Section III, that Uruguayan nationality -- i.e., the nationality of a "natural citizen" -- cannot be lost, even if the natural citizen naturalizes in another country, while alien citizens will lose their "legal citizenship" if they naturalize into the citizenship of another state.

In other words, Uruguay tolerates "dual nationality" among its "native" (natural) citizens, but does not tolerate "dual citizenship" among its "alien" (legal) citizens.

The inability of natural citizens of Uruguay to renounce their nationality has created problems for those would like to naturalize in a state that requires renunciation of other nationalities as a condition for naturalization -- such as in the United States or Japan, each of which makes different provisions for minimizing dual nationality.

Uruguay is not the only country that regards their natural (birthright) nationality as never lost. The Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, and Nicaragua -- all essentially jus soli American states like Uruguay -- also regard their nationality as permanent. Argentina, Brazil, and Cuba are among a number of other countries that make it extremely difficult to renounce their nationality.

The United States permits renunciation but the procedure is bureaucratically traumatic and expensive. The United States permits an alternative form of divestment called "relinquishment", which is not quite as permanent as "renunciation" but nonetheless results in loss of citizenship and invalidation of one's US passport.

Japan generally allows Uruguayans and other such aliens to naturalize, tacitly accepting the constraints imposed by their original country of nationality on renunciation.

Japan in many ways has been more tolerant of dual nationality than the United States, not only in cases of naturalization, but at time of birth. Japan's provisions for renunciation are a direct result of pressure from the United States in 1916 to enable American citizens with Japanese nationality to renounce their Japanese status.

Provisions for "nationality choice" introduced in Japan's 1950 Nationality Law from 1985 originate from the pressure the United States brought to bear on Japan the early 1920s, which resulted in 1924 provisions for reserving rights to birthright Japanese nationality among the offspring born to Japanese parents living in designated jus soli states, including Argentina (亜爾然丁国), Brazil (伯剌西爾国), Canada (加奈陀), Chile (智利国), and Peru (秘露国). Mexico was added to the list in 1926 by another imperial ordinance (No. 16 of 1926). I would guess that Uruguay was not listed because it wouldn't have objected to dual nationality among Uruguayan-born offspring of Japanese. See 1899 Nationality Law for the texts and discussions of the 1916 and 1924 revisions to the 1899 Nationality Law.

The United States also induced Uruguay, among a number of other American states, to sign naturalization conventions aimed especially at eliminating dual nationality (see next).

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1908 Naturalization Convention Between the United States and Uruguay

From the middle of the 19th century, the United States began to conclude naturalization treaties with European states. These treaties, initiated mainly by the United States, recognized the rights of the subjects, nationals, and citizens of one party state to naturalize in the other state, and included provisions for preventing dual nationality.

By the late 19th century, the United States was also becoming concerning about the amount of immigration of Orientals, especially Chinese, who faced considerable animosity in California, where sizable communities of Chinese immigrants had formed since the Gold Rush and the building of the transcontinental railroad. And in 1882, for purely racist reasons, Congress enacted the so-called Chinese Exclusion Act, which banned most Chinese immigration. The act was renewed in 1892, made permanent in 1902, and would not be repealed until 1943, during World War II, when the United States and China were allies in a common war against Japan.

By the early 1900s, the United States was shifting its concern about naturalization and dual nationality to neighboring American hemisphere states that had more tolerant attitudes toward nationality and citizenship. including Uruguay. And America's anti-Oriental sentiments had shifted to Japanese, who had replaced Chinese, again especially in California, as the "race to hate" in the eyes of white Americans who, even if not supremacists, feared a "Yellow Peril" of the kind that had become the theme of popular English fiction.

Naturalization treaties between the United States and other states

Between 1868 and 1911, the United States signed at least 12 naturalization treaties with other states.

1. 1868 Naturalization convention with North German Confederation
   1. First recognition by a European entity, consisting of 22 member states,
      of the legal right of its (or their) subjects to become American citizens
2. 1868 Naturalization convention with Belgium
3. 1869 Naturalization convention with Sweden and Norway
4. 1870 Naturalization convention with United Kingdom
5. 1872 Naturalization convention with Denmark
6. 1902 Naturalization convention with Haiti
7. 1907-1908 Gentlemen's Agreement with the Empire of Japan
   1. Informal non-binding acceptance by Japan of American demands
      to limit migration from Japan to California and other states
      or face formal restrictions like the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act
8. 1907 Naturalization convention with Peru
9. 1908 Naturalization convention with Portugal
10. 1908 Naturalization convention with El Salvador
11. 1908 Naturalization convention with Honduras
12. 1908 Naturalization convention with Nicaragua
13. 1908 Naturalization convention with Uruguay
14. 1911 Naturalization convention with Costa Rica

In 1908, the United States signed three practically identical naturalization treaties with El Salvador on 14 March 1908, Honduras on 23 June 1908, and Uruguay on 10 August 1908. The treaties differ only slightly and insubstantially in their wording.

1908 naturalization treaty with Uruguay

The Naturalization Convention Between the United States and Uruguay -- after its signing in Montevideo, Uruguay, on 10 August 1908 by representatives of the presidents of the two states -- went through the usual legislative gauntlet in the United States.

10 August 1908     Signed at Montevideo
10 December 1908   Ratification advised by the Senate
26 December 1908   Ratified by the President
14 May 1909        Ratified by Uruguay
14 May 1909        Ratifications ea~changed at Montevideo
19 June 1909       Proclaimed

The following Spanish and English text of the treaty are slightly reformatted adaptations of versions published in The American Journal of International Law (Volume 3, 1909, Official Documents, pages 284-285), and in Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States with the annual message of the president transmitted to Congress December 7, 1909 (United States Department of State, Washington. D.C., Paraguay and Uruguay, pages 606-607).

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