If You're Born in the Sky, What's Your Nationality?

npr.org

6 points·LukeLambert··5 comments

In my mind, whenever there's a grey area in interpreting the law, shouldn't it default to common sense, i.e. what a reasonable person would conclude? This is why we use phrases like "beyond a reasonable doubt" and the concept of a reasonable person (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_person) in law.

I realize this is a fun little exercise, but any reasonable observer in the scenario described would have to conclude that the baby should be an American citizen.

This article seems to incorrectly assume that if you are born in a country you will be a citizen of that country. In reality, most of the countries in the world don't grant citizenship to anyone born in their territory[1]. Outside of the Americas only a handful of countries do.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jus_soli

Would existing policies cover the space station, where being "over" a country could cover many countries?

Well, strictly speaking, an orbiting spacecraft can be said to be over only one country at a time. So someone born in orbit could still be assumed to have been over a given country and therefore a citizen of that country -- unless the delivery takes too long.

That reminds me of an old joke. The world's tallest baby was born on June 12th, 13th and 14th, 1952. :)

Wasn't there a Conspiracy Keanu meme asking this exact same question?

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