Extraordinary Naturalization: Edward Snowden, Bobby Fischer, Iceland and Japan

Edward Joeseph Snowden did live & work in Japan

Edward Snowden, a contractor for the NSA who worked for Booz Allen Hamilton, has been in the news for the past month and is currently a fugitive from the U.S. law hiding in the transit zone of a Sheremetyevo International Airport in Moscow. He has been looking for a way to leave this area and go to a country where he won't be able to be tried or punished for the crimes that the U.S. government alleges he committed.

Standard operating practice for people who flee from the law of their country by going overseas is to freeze/cancel their passports (which does not cancel your citizenship/nationality) so that the only place you can travel to is back to the country that you're a national of (in Snowden's case, back to the United States, into the waiting hands of prosecutors).

The problem with applying for asylum for political crimes is the prerequisite of having to be physically present in that country to apply for it.

One way to get around this Catch-22 is to grant somebody nationality/citizenship, which would give them the ability to travel to the country they are (now) a legal citizen of even if they don't have a passport yet.

Iceland's Nationality Laws

Iceland's Nationality Laws are very similar to Japan's in that it's primarily (like Japan, with some exceptions) a jus sanguinis country: natural-born nationality by descent from those with the same nationality.

Like Japan, there are jus soli exceptions for children born on its territory who would become stateless.

To naturalize, you generally need to spend a certain amount of years in the country as a legal foreign resident. Like Japan, the years you need to qualify are reduced depending on your connection to the country (marriage to a national, family connections to nationals, etc).

Edward Snowden, however, needs to obtain the privileges of nationality without having to earn it via years of residence because he cannot actually get into the country to log the years as a foreign resident.

However, most countries have a special loophole that allows people to bypass the ordinary methods of obtaining nationality...

Extraordinary Naturalization

Japan has a special rule in its nationality law that allows somebody to bypass all six requirements (① Residency Time, ② Adult, ③ Law abiding, ④ Won't be poor, ⑤ single nationality, ⑥ Not an enemy of the Constitution) of naturalization: Article 9 of the Japanese Nationality Law (not to be confused with Article 9 of the Constitution).

日本に {Nihon ni}特別の {tokubetsu no}功労の {kōrō no}ある外国人については、 {aru gaikokujin nitsuite wa}法務大臣は、 {Hōmudaijin wa,}第五条第一項の規定にかかわらず、 {dai-5-jō dai-1-kō no kitei ni kakawarazu,}国会の承認を得て、 {Kokkai no shōnin o ete,}その帰化を許可することができる。 {sono kika o kyoka suru koto ga dekiru.}

With respect to an alien who has rendered especially meritorious service to Japan, the Minister of Justice may, notwithstanding the provision of Article 5, paragraph 1, permit the naturalization of the alien with the approval of the Diet.

There is no name given to Article 9, but it's colloquially called 『大帰化 {taikika}』, which can be translated as "extraordinary naturalization".

Getting this is no easy feat; "approval of the [bicameral] [National] Diet [aka Japan's Parliament, or 国会 {kokkai}]" means that a >50% majority of both the House of Representatives (衆議院 {shūgiin}) — 480 people thus >240 legislators — and the House of Councilors (参議院 {sangiin}) — 242; thus >121 legislators — is necessary.

Japan's Nationality Law, including its Article 9 for extraordinary naturalization, has been on the books since July 1st, 1950. Not a single person has ever been granted nationality via extraordinary naturalization in over sixty years since its inception.

Keene gets another cultural medal

I myself had assumed that Donald Keene (キーン　ドナルド {KĪN Donarudo}) would be the first to qualify for this, as his numerous national awards he's received from the Emperor of Japan would qualify as 『特別の功労』 {"tokubetsu no kōrō"} ("especially meritorious service") and his advanced age at the time of application (89 years old) necessitated speed and simplification. It would have been embarrassing if he had died naturally of old age before the naturalization process completed.

Iceland's nationality law allows for a similar mechanism to bypass its requirements: Article 6 allows the legislature of its unicameral (63 representatives) parliament to grant citizenship. Unlike Japan, Iceland also has a mechanism for the executive branch of government to grant Icelandic citizenship: Articles 7, 8 and 9.

[Section II. Citizenship granted by legislation.]

Article 6. The Althingi may grant Icelandic citizenship by legislation.
Before an application for citizenship is submitted to the Althingi, [the ministry]) shall receive comments on it from the commissioner of police in the applicant's locality, and from [the Directorate of Immigration].)

If the person who receives citizenship by statute has children, the provisions of Article 5 shall apply to them unless other provisions are made in this Act.

Píratar party

Snowden's odds of getting extraordinary naturalization in Iceland v. Fischer

Currently, only six (6) members — out of 63 — of Althingi (Iceland's unicameral parliament) are in favor of giving Edward J. Snowden citizenship by extraordinary naturalization, which is being sponsored by politician Ögmundur Jónasson. This includes all three members of Iceland's "Pirate Party" (a party focused on internet copyright & patent policies as well as privacy policies) as well as three members from the "Bright Future Party" and the "Left-Green Movement". That is nowhere near enough support to get Icelandic nationality.

Bobby Fischer, on the other hand, was able to get Icelandic citizenship after Japan had refused to permit him to stay in Japan any longer: Iceland's parliament voted: forty (40) in favor, zero (0) not in favor, and two (2) abstaining.

Bobby Fischer was caught travelling on a cancelled U.S. passport after having evaded the U.S. for years on charges of tax evasion and defying an embargo on Yugoslavia in 1992.

Bobby Fischer

How Bobby Fischer managed to evade Japanese immigration and travel from there for so many years is a bit of a mystery (he was even able to add pages to his U.S. passport despite the fact that it had been technically revoked), but after some years his luck eventually ran out.

The reason Bobby Fischer received Icelandic nationality was because of chess; he held his 1972 match with Boris Vasilievich SPASSKY (Борис Васильевич Спасский) on Icelandic soil (Reykjavík) and gave the country a lot of publicity at the time. Chess is popular in Iceland, and live matches are sometimes broadcast on television. They even celebrate "Chess Day" in Iceland.

Example "alien passport"

He had tried applying for asylum in Japan — which was refused. He then claimed he was married to pharmacist and Japanese chess champion and general secretary of the Japan Chess Foundation, 渡井美代子 {WATAI Miyoko} — but they could not produce a marriage certificate. Even though Iceland was appreciative of Fischer and his threat of deportation from Japan to the United States, they still were hesitant about giving him Icelandic citizenship. Initially, Iceland tried giving him an Icelandic "alien's passport" (usually called a "certificate of identity"), which is usually given to people who can't get a passport such as a stateless person,  and a resident visa. When Iceland realized that would not be enough to keep Japan's Minister of Justice from deporting him to the United States, they finally gave him Icelandic citizenship via legislative extraordinary naturalization.

Fischer's Icelandic Passport

Receiving Icelandic nationality allowed Bobby Fischer to escape the U.S. and Japan and live in Iceland with his Japanese common-law wife until his final days (he was rumored to also have a wife in the Philippines and sired several children out of wedlock).

It is not known if Ed Snowden can play chess or not, though his current American Libertarian social philosophies seem to align with the Pirate Party of Iceland.

Extraordinary Naturalization in the United States

While not exactly codified into the U.S. Code, it is not impossible or unheard of to bypass the normal three step procedure (live in U.S. as a lawful foreign resident, become a permanent resident, then apply for naturalization) for obtaining U.S. citizenship. Billionaire Jack Kent Cooke, a Canadian who once owned the L.A. Kings (NHL), the L.A. Lakers (NBA), and the Washington Redskins (NFL), started as an Ontario media mogul who was having a hard time breaking into the broadcast market in the States due to laws restricting foreign ownership of radio & television stations.

Rather than go through the normal process of naturalizing like ordinary mortals, Cooke got U.S. Senator Francis Walter (D-PA) to sponsor a special bill in Congress to expedite his citizenship, which would have normally taken five years. Both the Senate and the House, and even President Eisenhower, approved expediting his application.

Nationality: Not just Rights and Privileges

Checkmate: Wife Watai gets the inheritance

However, both Japanese and Icelandic citizenship are not something that is all about privileges and rights. When you get an additional nationality, you also assume the responsibilities that come with that naturalization too. Those responsibilities do not go away just because you no longer live in the country anymore, as both Bobby Fischer and Edward Snowden learned the hard way.

After Bobby Fischer died, there was the matter of dividing up his significant estate, which was complicated by the fact that he had possible heirs in the Philippines, Iceland and Japan. Also, he had no will, and the United States claimed that it was owed part of his inheritance due to unpaid income taxes. The legal battle took years, costs thousands of dollars, and involved the high courts in at least three countries.

Under Icelandic law (Fischer died an Iceland national and was buried there, but never legally renounced his U.S. citizenship), the lawful wife (common law or proper) gets just 33% of the estate while the legal dependents inherits the rest. His body had to be exhumed for a DNA test. His Japanese wife was eventually awarded the estate after DNA concluded that he was not the father of the Philippine woman who claimed to be his biological daughter.