Yesterday I ran a post about a Nigerian woman that gave birth 36,000ft up the sky on board a British Airways flight (Click Here if you missed it).
Well, someone commented on the post with the question "what is the nationality of the baby?". I know a lot of people would be pondering on that same question of the child's nationality on their mind, thats what am here to address now.
"Under the 1944 Convention on International Civil Aviation, articles 17–21, all aircraft have the nationality of the state in which they are registered, and may not have multiple nationalities. The law of the aircraft's nationality is applicable on the aircraft. However, nationality laws of any country already apply everywhere, since it is for each country to determine who are its nationals. So this convention has no effect on nationality laws. The convention does not say that a birth on a country's aircraft is to be treated as a birth in that country for the purposes of nationality".
Under the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, for the purposes of determining the obligations under the Convention, a birth on a ship or aircraft in international waters or airspace shall be treated as a birth in the country of the ship or aircraft's registration. However, the Convention only applies to births where the child would otherwise be stateless. Since in most cases a child would be covered by one or more countries' jus sanguinis at birth (getting the same citizenship as its parents), this Convention rarely comes into play. In addition, there are still very few Member States that are party to the 1961 Convention.
There is some amount of argument over what to do when and if the child is born over the ocean. The most accepted approach is to use either the depart or arrival destination, depending on which the coordinates are closer to or the first place of departure of the baby.
Different countries have different approach as I mentioned earlier, Take USA for instance- U.S. law holds that natural persons born on foreign ships docked at U.S. ports or born within the limit of U.S. territorial waters are U.S. citizens. An important exception to this rule is that children born to people who (in line with the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution) are not "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States (e.g. diplomats accredited with the United States Department of State) are not automatically U.S. citizens. Despite a common misconception to the contrary, birth on board a U.S.-flagged ship, airliner, or military vessel outside of the 12-nautical mile (22.2 km/ 13-13/16 st. mi.) limit is not considered to be a birth on U.S. territory, and the principle of jus soli thus does not apply.
Prior to the 1961 Convention, quite a number of states expressly provided, in their laws, that births and deaths aboard an aircraft registered to that state are considered to have occurred on national territory, and thus the nationality laws of that territory apply. One such was § 32(5) of the British Nationality Act 1948. This makes the baby born yesterday onboard a British Airways flight a British by birth.
There are some airline that gives free flight for life for babies born on their carrier, Its a rumor that am yet to confirm.
Thanks for reading, let me know what you think on the comment Zone.
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