[§ 57. Jurisdiction over Natural-born Subjects]
Children born within a state of which the parents are citizens are natural-born subjects of that state. Such persons are fully under the local jurisdiction.
Foundlings, because of the uncertainty of parentage, are considered subjects of the state in which they are found.
Illegitimate children take the nationality of the mother, provided they are born in the state of which the mother is subject.
The great bulk of the population of all states, except those most recently founded, is natural-born, and therefore fully under local jurisdiction.
[§ 58. Foreign-born Subjects]
It is the general principle that each state determines citizenship by its own laws. The status of persons born abroad may become very uncertain by virtue of the conflict of laws of the state of which one or both the parents are citizens and the state in which the child is born.
These laws in regard to children born to parents while sojourning in foreign countries may be classified as follows:—
(a) The child born in the foreign country is a subject of the state of which his parents are citizens. That the child inherits the nationality of his father is a common maxim known as jus sanguinis. The United States law says, "All children heretofore born or hereafter born out of the limits and jurisdiction of the United States, whose fathers were or may be at the time of their birth citizens thereof, are declared to be citizens of the United States; but the rights of citizenship shall not descend to children whose fathers never resided in the United States."[156] The jus sanguinis is followed by Austria,[157] Germany,[158] Hungary,[159] Sweden,[160] Switzerland,[161] and by some of the smaller European states.
(b) Certain states follow the rule of jus soli, maintaining that the place of birth determines the nationality. Great Britain, by Article 4, of the Act of May 12, 1870, adopts this principle. By the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside." The laws of the United States have given rise to many questions.[162] Portugal and most of the South American states follow the jus soli.