Recent revelations about the death of a Melbourne man imprisoned in Israel have sparked questions about how much Australia knew about his case, and how far it was willing to go to get involved.
A dual Australian-Israeli citizen, Ben Zygier, allegedly hanged himself in his cell after months of incarceration at a top security Israeli facility.
A suspected Mossad agent, the circumstances surrounding Mr Zygier's detention and death are still not fully known.
The federal government has admitted to being aware of the case since 2010, saying it accepted Israel's assurances that the 34-year-old would be afforded legal rights to which he was entitled as an Israeli citizen.
But as the story unfolds, it's emerged that Mr Zygier's rights as an Australian citizen may have been compromised.
As Kristina Kukolja reports, the case is raising concern about what implications this may have for other Australian dual nationals travelling to a country whose citizenship they also hold.
At the time of his death in December 2010, Ben Zygier had spent the greater part of the year secretly detained in a top security Israeli facilty.
Now a suspected affiliate of Israel's intelligence agency Mossad, the man known as Prisoner X was given a false identity and placed under 24-hour surveillance.
Australian diplomatic officials in Tel Aviv maintain they weren't informed about his incarceration, but it's been confirmed that the federal government in Australia knew of his case even before he died.
The debate surrounding Mr Zygier's story has centered, in great part, on questions about what Australian consular assistance was made available to him during this time.
Foreign Minister Bob Carr has tasked his department head Peter Varghese with preparing a report on how the Department of Foreign Affairs handled the Zygier case.
Senator Carr says one of the issues the report may need to address relates to dual Australian citizens employed in another country whose citizenship they also hold.
"I think we've got to conclude that there is a special challenge in people who've got dual nationality who go to work for a foreign government. And I think we need to think how we regard that, and this could be an issue we've got to tease out as we go through Peter Varghese's report."
Professor of international law at the Australian National University, Donald Rothwell, believes the government's attention should extend to all Australians who hold citizenship of another country, not just those who become employed by a foreign government.
He says Mr Zygier's case is specific in that he is accused of involvement with Israeli intelligence.
But the professor says the uncertainty surrounding what consular representation -- if any -- he actually received from Australia during his imprisonment, begs the question of whether his dual citizenship had any part to play in the matter.
This, argues Professor Rothwell, raises serious questions about what consular help Australian dual nationals in general are legally entitled to when travelling to their other country.
Professor Rothwell says it's an issue also highlighted in the case of a group of employees of the Australian mining company Rio Tinto jailed in China over bribery and espionage allegations.
"We know in our globalised world we have an increasing number of Australian dual nationals and, indeed, Australia has recently been faced with a number of very high profile cases of Australians of Chinese ethnicity facing legal proceedings where precisely this issue has arisen in terms of China's reluctance to provide Australian consular officials with appropriate access to Australians of dual nationality being held in China. I, therefore, am quite troubled if the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade is saying that it will, in fact, adopt quite a differential approach to Australians of dual nationality in these consular cases as opposed to Australians holding only Australian passports."
Professor Donald Rothwell says domestic laws don't address the matter of Australian citizens' legal entitlements to diplomatic assistance abroad.
The situation of dual nationals, he contends, is even more ambiguous.
"We've got no decision of the Australian courts as to the legal entitlements of Australian citizens with respect to consular representation. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade publishes a Consular Services Charter which outlines the types of expectations Australian citizens can have, but that Consular Services Charter very particularly avoids the use of language suggesting that citizens have any rights on these matters. Now, the Consular Services Charter does begin to explore a little bit the question of dual citizens, but it doesn't precisely outline the type of expectations citizens can have, for example, when they enter another country using the passport they may hold for that other country or where a dual citizen has resumed residency in their country of birth or of their citizenship, so these are matters that certainly require clarification when we have many expatriate Australians located around the world or persons who have come to Australia, been naturalised, and returned to their country of birth."
So, can international law provide any insight?
An expert from the University of Technology in Sydney, Professor Sam Blay says the issue of dual nationality has always been problematic in international law.
And he warns that by holding more than one passport, a person weakens the capability of either state to provide consular assistance in relation to the other.
"In international law, first of all, each state, each nation, is entitled to regulate its nationality laws within its domestic law. The second point, however, is that once a person who has dual nationality, each country whose passport that person holds is entitled to exercise jurisdiction in respect of that person within and in accordance with their own laws. This raises a problem because once you travel to, let's say, your second country using that country's passport in a way you submit quite easily and quite critically to the country's jurisdiction. What this does is that you are for all practical purposes a citizen of that country."
Professor Blay says this doesn't mean Australia shouldn't intervene on behalf of its citizens who are dual nationals.
Especially, he says, if Australia believes the human rights of one of its citizens have been violated.
"It's also the case that all countries submit to international law standards relating to human rights. After all, if you take the case of Australia, we are able to comment on human rights issues in particular countries relating to citizens who are obviously citizens in countries of which they live. If that is the case, then surely it must follow that where a person carries our passport we have a legitimate interest in the welfare of that person and so on human rights grounds alone we would be entitled to make inquiries relating to the person's welfare without necessarily being accused of being guilty of interference in their domestic affairs."
Australia today is home to over six-million migrants.
Many, if not most, of those who initially made the move here -- as well as their families -- still maintain a connection to the country of their origin.
Some own property, work or even reside abroad for extended periods of time.
How many carry a foreign passport is not exactly known.
And it's this group that has the main body representing Australia's ethnic communities concerned in the wake of the Ben Zygier revelations.
The Federation of Ethnic Communities' Councils of Australia says it's worried about the possibility that Australians with dual nationality may be regarded as having a different status while overseas to those who hold only Australian citizenship.
FECCA Chairman Pino Migliorino says there should be one set of rules for all Australians.
"Why should someone have less rights just because they hold another citizenship? I think that is a debatable point. Especially if I sa that the second citizenship is not one that they've actively retained and it is one that has actually been applied to them because of their birth in the country. So, I think there are some complicating factors there and in terms of people taking out Australian citizenship because of the nature of that citizenship, it is something that they have chosen and been accepted to be given and, therefore, they should have rights according to that."
Pino Migliorino says members of Australia's migrant communities who have dual citizenship -- in particular more recent arrivals -- are largely unaware of what legal responsibility Australian authorities have towards them in the other country of their citizenship.
"Let's say there would be high levels of ignorance around the ramifications and entitlements around this area, and especially now and then way it's been debated in the public space. This would even increase the confusion more than anything else in terms of what rights people actually have. So, I think with anything which is coming up as a potential issue, the greater clarification, the greater specifications in terms of what responsibilities exist and what rights exist is extremely important because we also need to understand that people who come from countries overseas are far more likely to travel back to those countries, so this is a situation which could replicate itself many times over."
