option

in international law, the choice of citizenship extended to persons having citizenship of two or more states. The implementation of the option is based on an agreement between the interested states or on legislation by the states. The option arises most often in the cession of territory, when special accords grant citizens of the contracting states the right of option. Children, as a rule, follow their parents’ option of citizenship.

An example of option connected with territorial changes after World War II is the 1947 peace treaty with Italy, which granted for one year the right of option of citizenship to citizens who until 1946 had been permanent residents of territories ceded at that time to other states.

After the October Revolution of 1917, the Soviet state concluded an agreement on option with the states that had emerged from the former Russian Empire, for example, with Finland. The USSR signed a number of option agreements after World War II. An example is the Protocol on Option in the 1945 Soviet-Czechoslovak treaty on the Transcarpathian Ukraine. The protocol provided that persons of Ukrainian or Russian nationality who resided in regions of Slovakia in Czechoslovakia and persons of Slovak or Czech nationalities who resided in the Transcarpathian Ukraine could choose either Soviet or Czechoslovak citizenship.

Option of citizenship was also provided for in the conventions on dual citizenship the USSR concluded with a number of socialist states between 1956 and 1966.