'Child's Nationality Follows Parents'... Ministry of Justice Revises Jus Sanguinis Nationality Law

"Proliferation of 'Congenital Dual Nationals' Victims... 'Will Work on System Improvements to Prevent Use for Military Service Evasion'"

[Asia Economy Reporter Baek Kyunghwan] Improvements to the system are being pursued for congenital dual nationals who face difficulties living abroad due to missing the timing for renouncing nationality. Currently, if at least one parent holds South Korean nationality, a child born overseas automatically acquires dual nationality, causing second-generation Koreans abroad to struggle with integration into the local mainstream society.

According to the legal community on the 30th, the Ministry of Justice has recently begun redesigning the nationality granting system in response to the increasing trend of overseas migration by nationals. To this end, they have separately commissioned research and plan to compare similar overseas policies to establish a system suitable for the domestic environment.

Currently, South Korea adopts the principle of "jus sanguinis," determining a child's nationality based on the nationality of the parents from the enactment of the Nationality Act to the present. Even if born abroad, if one parent is Korean, the child automatically becomes a dual national.

However, with the increase in overseas migration and the rise in South Korean nationals born abroad regardless of ties to South Korea, there have been continuous calls to change the automatic nationality granting system based on jus sanguinis.

The problem lies in that males can freely choose their nationality during the three months after turning 18 and being enlisted as first-class national servicemen, but if they miss this period, they cannot renounce their nationality until they turn 38. This is why cases are increasing where males born overseas, such as in the United States, unaware of their dual nationality status, fail to renounce Korean nationality in time and suffer disadvantages in public office entry or military service in those countries.

Last year, the Constitutional Court ruled the congenital dual nationality provision as "unconstitutional," which also had an impact. The court viewed that "the congenital dual nationality system excessively restricts the freedom to renounce nationality" and set a condition that "improvement legislation must be enacted by September 30, 2022," prompting the Ministry of Justice to prepare corresponding improvement measures.

First, the Ministry of Justice plans to identify the scope of policy targets and listen to the limitations and collective opinions. To this end, they intend to request opinions from Korean diaspora organizations in the top 10 countries with the largest overseas Korean populations and review legislative examples from those countries. Internally, discussions are underway on measures such as automatically canceling South Korean nationality if birth registration is not made and the individual does not choose otherwise, and allowing renunciation of nationality at any time regardless of timing if birth registration has been made but there is no suspicion of overseas childbirth for evasion or military service avoidance. However, since there is a possibility that dual nationals may delay nationality selection, enjoy various benefits as Koreans, and then renounce nationality to avoid military service, countermeasures to prevent this will also be prepared.

A Ministry of Justice official stated, "With the increasing trend of overseas migration, the number of nationals born abroad regardless of ties to South Korea is rising, so we plan to create a system suitable for the changed policy environment to prevent unjust victims," adding, "Through this opportunity, we will thoroughly analyze considerations by issue and establish a Korean-style nationality granting system for overseas-born individuals."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.