Previous UPR of the United Arab Emirates under the First, Second and Third Cycle 6. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) was previously reviewed during the 3rd (First Cycle – 2008), 15th (Second Cycle – 2013) and 29th (Third Cycle – 2018) sessions of the UPR.4 7. In 2008, the UAE received one recommendation by Germany to amend gender discriminatory nationality laws and ensure that women married to non-nationals have equal rights as men to confer their nationality to their children. 5 In 2013, four recommendations were made on protecting human rights defenders and minority groups from discrimination and arbitrary deprivation of nationality (Austria), ratifying the 1954 Convention on the Status of Stateless people (Ecuador), to solve issues of longterm stateless populations in the country (Mexico) and to withdraw reservations to CEDAW, including Article 9. Two recommendations out of four (Ecuador and Mexico) were accepted. 6 In 2018, six recommendations on the right to nationality and statelessness were made to UAE. Three recommendations focused on achieving genderequal nationality laws in the conferral of UAE nationality onto their children (Sierra Leone, Slovakia, Kenya), two recommendations urged UAE to ratify the Statelessness Conventions (Slovakia, Kenya), and one recommendation focused on access to justice for stateless persons (Sierra Leone). Only the latter recommendation was accepted.7 For a full list of relevant recommendations, please see the Annex to this submission. 8. In addition to UPR, CEDAW, CRC, CERD, and CRPD made several recommendations addressing gender discrimination in nationality laws which does not allow women to confer nationality to children and foreign spouses in the same way as men, protracted situations of statelessness among the Bidoon community, discrimination in naturalisation process based on ethnicity, race or disability. For a full list of relevant recommendations, please see the Annex to this submission. United Arab Emirates’ International Obligations 9. The UAE is not a signatory to either the 1954 Convention on the Status of Stateless Persons or the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. However, the UAE has international obligations to protect the right to a nationality and protect the rights of stateless persons on the basis of other UN and regional treaties to which it is a party. These include, among others,8 Convention of the Rights of the Child (CRC - see articles 2, 3, 7 and 8), Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against 4 For more information about the United Arab Emirates under the Universal Periodic Review, see: https://www.ohchr.org/en/hr-bodies/upr/ae-index. 5 UN Human Rights Council, ‘Report of the Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review: United Arab Emirates’, A/HRC/10/75, (12 January 2009), available at: https://www.upr-info.org/sites/default/files/documents/201310/ahrc1075unitedarabemiratese.pdf. 6 UN Human Rights Council, ‘Report of the Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review: United Arab Emirates’, A/HRC/23/13, (21 March 2013), paras. 128.32, 128.73, 128.33 and 128.105, available at: https://www.uprinfo.org/sites/default/files/documents/2013-10/ahrc2313e.pdf. 7 UN Human Rights Council, ‘Report of the Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review: United Arab Emirates’, A/HRC/38/14, (18 April 2018), paras. 141.39, 141.40, 141.47, 141.170, 141.171 and 141.216, available at: https://www.uprinfo.org/sites/default/files/documents/2018-06/a_hrc_38_14_e.pdf. 8 For more information, see: https://treaties.un.org/Pages/ParticipationStatus.aspx?clang=_en. 2