“We await a jurist with the mastery of the legal materials, the philosophical vision, and the juristic faith which enabled Grotius to set up a law of nations almost at one stroke,” declared Dean Pound in concluding his address before the Thirty-Third Annual Meeting of the American Society of International Law on “The Idea of Law in International Relations.” That is a statement which challenges the attention and arouses the curiosity of a present-day international lawyer. Although accustomed as such a lawyer is to the notion of Grotius as the founder and father of the law of nations, it is a little startling to be told that the answer to the current dilemma of international law is contingent upon the advent of a jurist with his accomplishments. What is there in his De Jure Belli ac Pads to warrant such confidence? What would he have to offer as a guide to a lawyer seeking to extend and to reenforce the domain of law in international relations?

The law of citizenship did not escape the general chaos into which the existing laws of Russia fell upon the accession of the Bolsheviks to power on November 7, 1917. Consequently it has not been easy to determine thestatus of citizens of the former Russian régime under the new government, especially of those residing abroad, voluntarily or by compulsion. It has only been gradually that any degree of certainty has come into the law, the first decree purporting to cover the question of citizenship in a comprehensive fashion not having been enacted until October 29, 1924. Even today one who essays to state with certainty what the Soviet law of citizenship is with respect to any given case needs to tread warily. After a comprehensive study of that law and its application, one is impressed with the fact that not all its provisions can be taken literally in all cases.

The comprehensive revision of the nationality laws of the United States, now being formulated in pursuance of an Executive Order issued by President Roosevelt on April 25,1933, lends special interest and value at the present time to a comparative study of the laws of foreign states relating to nationality at birth and to the loss of nationality.