Here’s a hypothetical situation that occurred to me yesterday, for no particular reason:
Suppose that, at some point in the future, the U.S. Government realizes that their war against France is going badly and decides to reinstate the draft. Among the draftees is Joe, who holds dual citizenship in the United States and Fredonia. Rather than being drafted, Joe moves to Fredonia, goes to the United States embassy there, and renounces his U.S. citizenship.
Questions:
Would Joe even be allowed to leave the U.S. if he had already willfully ignored a draft notice? Would he be allowed to renounce his citizenship if he had dodged the draft & showed up in Fredonia? Could he be arrested at the embassy in Fredonia, since it’s technically U.S. soil?
If Joe succeeds in renouncing his citizenship, is the draft notice now null and void? Or is Joe still guilty of dodging the draft? Will Joe be arrested should he set foot on U.S. soil ever again? If Joe returned to the U.S. for his sister’s wedding and was arrested, could the government of Fredonia do anything to help him out?
Renouncing American citizenship isn’t hypothetical. It’s real, and does happen (AFAIK you’d have to do it, for example, if you wanted to claim a Japanese citizenship to which you were entitled, as they don’t recognise dual citizenship.)
Quite frankly, if you’re in Fredonia, just don’t go to the embassy. The only way the USA could forcibly return you to America would be through extradition, which I very much doubt tends to cover military service.
Well technically they could arrest you since the embassy is US but they have to take you onto Fredonian soil out of the country and back to the US. Most gov’ts would have a fit if a foreign gov’t held one of their nationals against their will in it’s embassy.
He would still be guilty of a crime, both morally and legally.
We can see this by simply restating the scenario and making the crime murder. While it is certainly possible to jump nations to escape prosecution (Jews going to Israel, who will not return them, anyone having a child in Brazil for the same reason.) There is no escaping the fact that a crime has been committed.
Follow-up question, then: Do extradition treaties cover military service? Cecil once said that the reason draft dodgers weren’t extradited from Canada during the Vietnam War was that Canada didn’t have a draft, and Canada’s extradition treaty with the U.S. didn’t cover acts that weren’t crimes in Canada. Are there countries with compulsory military service which would extradite you over this?