714 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW [Vol. 105:694 equality norm, not a conception of a human right to acquire nationality in specific circumstances. It dictated no particular substantive rule for acquiring or losing nationality— only that women could not be disadvantaged in the formulation of those rules.132 So long as men and women are subject to the same rules, both can be excluded. In this sense, international law rules on women and nationality did not directly affect national self-definition as executed in nationality practices.133 Modern-Era Limitations Although international law thus became more salient to nationality practice during the midtwentieth century than previously, it remained a marginal constraint on state practice. The lack of a robust international regime governing nationality practice is reflected in near-universal commentary framing nationality as a matter of sovereign discretion. Through most of the late twentieth century (with the end of the Cold War presenting a useful, not completely artificial periodization), the conventional wisdom among legal scholars held nationality practice to be largely unconstrained by international law,134 a view echoed by social scientists.135 No major scholar appears to have suggested that practices concerning naturalization136 or birthright 132 Cf. Karen Knop, Relational Nationality: On Gender and Nationality in International Law, in CITIZENSHIP TODAY, supra note 5, at 89, 103 (“while a state must provide [special] treatment to foreign wives and foreign husbands equally if it provides it to either, the state is under no obligation to provide special treatment in the first place”). As Patrick Weil documents, nationality reforms in some states were driven by factors other than sex equality. In the United States the Cable Act of 1922, Pub. L. No. 67-346, 42 Stat. 1021, was congruent with the restrictionist agenda insofar as it eliminated automatic citizenship for foreign women marrying U.S. citizen men. In France, demographic policy (“populationism”) coincided with the feminist agenda to end expatriation of French women marrying foreign husbands. See WEIL, supra note 21, at 197–204. 133 Of course, they may reflect national self-definition with respect to questions of sex equality. They may also reflect how community lines are dictated at the family level (whether, most notably, spouses can maintain a transnational divide). But they do not implicate first-level community boundaries, as do, for instance, eligibility requirements relating to ethnicity, language, or residence. 134 See, e.g., GEORG SCHWARZENBERGER, A MANUAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW 141 (5th ed. 1967) (“in principle, international law leaves each territorial sovereign to decide which of his inhabitants he wishes to grant nationality”); WEIS, supra note 13, at 65– 66 (“[t]he right of a State to determine who are, and who are not, its nationals is an essential element of its sovereignty”); Otto Kimminich, The Conventions for the Prevention of Double Nationality and Their Meaning for Germany and Europe in an Era of Migration, 1996 GER. Y.B. INT’L L. 224, 240 (affirming contemporary force of Hague Convention’s provision that “[i]t is for each State to determine under its own law who are its nationals”). 135 See, e.g., ROGERS BRUBAKER, CITIZENSHIP AND NATIONHOOD IN FRANCE AND GERMANY 180 (1998) (characterizing nationality practice as the “last bastion of sovereignty”); SASKIA SASSEN, TERRITORY, AUTHORITY, RIGHTS: FROM MEDIEVAL TO GLOBAL ASSEMBLAGES 281– 82 (2006) (“International law affirms that each state may determine who will be considered a citizen of that state.”). 136 See, e.g., WEIS, supra note 13, at 102 (“There is, in truth, no rule of international law restricting the qualifying conditions for naturalisation so long as the naturalisation is based on a voluntary act of the individual.”); Asbjørn Eide, Citizenship and International Human Rights Law, in CITIZENSHIP AND THE STATE IN THE MIDDLE EAST, supra note 5, at 88, 118 (naturalization an area in which “states have so far considered themselves entirely free to make their own rules”). At the same time that he passionately advocated a harmonized regime of birth nationality, James Brown Scott conceded state discretion concerning naturalization criteria. See SCOTT, supra note 34, at 17 (“The process of naturalization being an internal matter might, and probably should, be left to the domestic legislation of each and every State which is a party to the treaty or convention.”); see also League of Nations Experts Committee, supra note 13, at 34 (with respect to naturalization, “it is obvious that each State must be free to enact whatever rules it may think fit. . . . Naturalisation is an act of sovereignty, and any limitation of the powers of a State in such a matter is not to be thought of.”). While lamenting barriers to naturalization, Manley Hudson thought it “unlikely that Governments would be prepared to undertake obligations by international agreement regarding naturalization.” Hudson Report on Nationality, supra note 17, at 22. 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