Nottebohm Case Study

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Nottebohm Case [Liechtenstein v. Guatemala]

BACKGROUND AND FACTS

Friedrich Nottebohm was born in Germany in 1881. He moved to Guatemala for business

reasons in 1905 and lived there until 1943, except for business trips and visits to his brother in

Liechtenstein. He remained a German citizen during that time. One month after Germany's

invasion of Poland and the start of World War II in 1939, while visiting Liechtenstein,

Nottebohm applied to become a naturalized citizen. Liechtenstein waived the three-year

residency reguirement. Nottebohm paid taxes and fees to Liechtenstein and filed the requisite

forms, and Liechtenstein swore him in as a citizen and issued him a passport. Nottebohm

returned to Guatemala in 1940.

In 1943 Guatemala entered World War II, siding with the United States. Upon his return

to Guatemala, Nottebohm was arrested as a German enemy and turned over to the United States

for internment. His property was seized by Guatemala. Nottebohm was released in 1946, but his

property was not returned. Liechtenstein filed a "memorial" for diplomatic protection of its

citizen, as the complaint is called, before the Internasional Court of Justice, claiming that

Guatemala had violated international law by refusing to recognieze Liechtenstein as his country

of nationality. Liechtenstein claims that it is entitled to damages.

JUDGMENT

International law leaves it to each State to lay down the rules governing the grant of its

own nationality. On the other hand, a State cannot claim that the rules it has thus laid down are

entitled to recognition by another State unless it has acted in conformity with this general aim of

making the legal bond of nationality accord with the individual's genuine connection with the

State.

According to the practice of States, to arbitral and judicial decisions, nationality is a legal

bond having as its basis a social fact of attachment, a genuine connection of existence, interests

and sentiments, together with the existence of reciprocal rights and duties. It may be said to

constitute the juridical expression of the fact that the individual upon whom it is conferred, either

directly by the law or as the result of an act of the authorities, is in fact more closely connected

with the population of the state conferring nationality than with that of any other State.

Naturalization is not a matter to be taken lightly. To seek and to obtain it is not something

that happens frequently in the life of a human being. It involves his breaking of a bond of

allegiance and his establishment of a new bond of allegiance. It may have far-reaching

consequences and involve profound changes in the destiny of the individual who obtains it. It

concerns him personally, and to consider it only from the point of view of its repercussions with

regard to his property would be to misunderstand its profound significance. In order to appraise

its international effect, it is impossible to disregard the circumstances in which it was conferred,

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the serious character which attaches to it, the real and effective, and not merely the verbal

preference of the individual seeking it for the country which grants it to him.

At the time of his naturalization does Nottebohm appear to have been more closely

attached by his tradition, his establishment, his interests, his activities, his family ties, his

intentions for the near future to Liechtenstein than to any other State?

At the date when he applied for naturalization Nootebohm had been a German national

from the time of his birth. He had always retained his connections with members of his family

who had remained in Germany and he had always had business connections with that country.

His country had been at war for more than a month, and there is nothing to indicate that the

application for naturalization then made by Nottebohm was motivated by any desire to dissociate

himself from the Government of his country.

He had been settled in Guatemala for 34 years. He had carried on his activities there. It was

the main seat of his interests. He returned there shortly after his naturalization, and it remained

the centre of his interests and of his business activities. He stayed there until his removal as a

result of war measures in 1943.

In contrast, his actual connections with Liechtenstein were extremely tenuous. No settled

abode, no prolonged residence in that country at the time of his application for naturalization: the

application indicates that he was paying a visit there and confirms the transient character of this

visit by its request that the naturalization proceedings should be initiated and concluded without

delay. No intention of settling there was shown at that time or realized in the ensuing weeks,

months or year-on the contrary, he returned to Guatemala very shortly after his naturalization

and showed every intention of remaining there. Furthermore other members of his family have

asserted Nottebohm's desire to spend his old age in Guatemala.

These facts clearly establish, on the one hand, the absence of any bond of attachment

between Nottebohm and Liechtenstein and, on the other hand, the existence of a long-standing

and close connection between him and Guatemala, a link which his naturalization in no way

weakened. It was granted without regard to the concept of nationality adopted in international

relations.

Naturalization was asked for not so much for the purpose of obtaining a legal recognition

of Nottebohm's membership in fact in the population of Liechtenstein, as it was to enable him to

substitute for his status as a national of a belligerent State that of a national of a neutral State,

with the sole aim of thus coming within the protection of Liechtenstein but not of becoming

wedded to its traditions, its interests, its way of life or of assuming the obligations - other than

fiscal obligations - and exercising the rights pertaining to the status thus acquired.

please comment about the case above according to you .