UAE violates nationality rights

As the reputation of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as the economic and touristic hub of the Middle East continues to grow, it continued to deprive stateless individuals of the right to nationality, impacting their access to a range of services. 

Statelessness is an issue too-often neglected in the UAE. A stateless person is one “who is not considered as a national by any State under the operation of its law”, whether that be due to a loss of nationality, having unknown heritage, or racial and/or religious discrimination. 

There is an estimate of 20,000-100,000 stateless people born in the UAE but denied nationality continued to be deprived of equal access to rights covered for Emirati citizens at state expense, such as comprehensive healthcare, housing and higher education, as well as jobs in the public sector. 

Statelessness is an issue that has burdened the people of the UAE since its independence from Great Britain in 1971, and one that continues to plague the Emirati populace well into the 21st century. 

Since the Arab Spring in 2011 it has been increasingly used as a punitive measure against those seeking democratic reform since the Arab Spring in 2011.

Notable cases include the Al-Saddiq and Al-Ka’abi family, and the International Centre for Justice and Human Rights estimates that 60 individuals were stripped of their Emirati citizenship in 2016 alone.

However, arguably no single population in the UAE has been so disenfranchised by issues of statelessness than the ‘bidoon’ in Arabic meaning ‘without’- population, comprised mainly of people from former nomadic tribes who have lived on the Arabian peninsula since long before the UAE’s independence. Due to legal confusions, but also racial discrimination, the bidoon were left without a nationality when the new state was founded.

The UAE is not a party to two of the most important UN treaties regarding statelessness. The first convention on statelessness is the 1961 UN Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. One of the main aims of this convention is to prevent statelessness at birth, which requires a state to grant citizenship of the country children are born in. 

The second, the 1954 UN Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, defines a stateless person as someone who is not a member of any nationality. This convention was designed to give people basic rights despite being stateless, including access to the housing market, education, employability and religious beliefs.