The British Nationality Act (BNA) of 1948 was designed to provide a form of supranational citizenship to accommodate the separate nationality provisions that were beginning to proliferate as a result of constitutional change within the late empire, decolonization and the formation of the Commonwealth. Under the provisions of the BNA, members of the Commonwealth would continue to be unified by transnational forms of citizenship, at least in principle. The Act aimed to cover every political arrangement conceivable in the late empire and early Commonwealth and contributed to the transformation of Great Britain into a multicultural society, by providing the legal vehicle for immigration into the UK in the second half of the twentieth century. However, the BNA had its limits. It could not be applied to territories characterized by constitutional exceptionalism and jurisdictional hybridity. In the Condominium of the New Hebrides, jointly governed by France and Great Britain from 1906 to 1980, the majority of the indigenous population were unable to benefit from the BNA, despite efforts to extend its coverage in all eligible territories. As part of the condominium agreement, the indigenous population were ineligible for any form of citizenship-British, French or New Hebridean-and remained stateless until independence as the Republic of Vanuatu in 1980. This article examines the relationship between indigenous statelessness and the BNA, exploring the implementation, interpretation and extent of the BNA in a territory characterized by constitutional hybridity, compromise and ambiguity. It argues that despite its emphasis on universal commonwealth citizenship, the BNA could not accommodate the diverse political, legal and constitutional diversity that characterized the Dominions, Crown Colonies, protectorates, protected states and condominia that had proliferated under imperial rule and whose legacies continued to inform the possibilities for decolonization and the politics of post-colonial citizenship making.

中文翻译：

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无国籍人、合格公民和受保护的地方：瓦努阿图的英国国籍法

1948 年的英国国籍法 (BNA) 旨在提供一种超国家公民身份，以适应由于晚期帝国内的宪法变化、非殖民化和英联邦的形成而开始激增的独立国籍规定。根据 BNA 的规定，至少在原则上，英联邦成员将继续由跨国公民形式统一。该法案旨在涵盖帝国晚期和英联邦早期可以想到的每一种政治安排，并通过为 20 世纪下半叶移民到英国提供法律工具，为英国向多元文化社会的转变做出了贡献。然而，BNA 有其局限性。它不能适用于以宪法例外论和管辖权混合为特征的领土。在 1906 年至 1980 年由法国和英国共同管理的新赫布里底群岛共管公寓中，尽管努力将 BNA 的覆盖范围扩大到所有符合条件的领土，但大多数土著居民仍无法从 BNA 中受益。作为公寓协议的一部分，土著居民没有资格获得任何形式的公民身份——英国、法国或新赫布里底群岛——并且在 1980 年瓦努阿图共和国独立之前一直处于无国籍状态。 本文探讨了土著无国籍与 BNA 之间的关系，在一个以宪法混合、妥协和模糊为特征的领土上探索 BNA 的实施、解释和范围。