to at least one recommendation the UAE received in the second review cycle, by imposing a broad, vague, and non-justiciable standard for the obligatory stripping of nationality.51 Issue III – Comoros Passports: No Solution to Statelessness in the UAE 35. The number of stateless persons in the UAE was estimated at around 100,000 in 2005.52 In 2017, the UAE denied the continuing existence of statelessness on its territory.53 Still, national legislation, the structure of Emirati population, and human rights rapporteurs’ accounts point to several ways in which statelessness persists in the federal state. 36. The 1972 Nationality Law lacks a provision that would extend Emirati nationality when a child is born to two stateless parents in the UAE. 54 Children can also be born into statelessness if the mother is Emirati and the father is non-Emirati and cannot confer his citizenship to his children. 55 While an Emirati woman can, under Article 2(d) of the Nationality Law, transfer her citizenship to her children when the father is stateless, this is not always implemented in practice. 56 Statelessness could also result as the descendants of migrants lose their ability to claim nationality from their parents’ or grandparents’ states of origin, or when an Emirati is stripped of nationality. 57 As documented above, both phenomena are known to occur in the UAE, which has long been home to generations of migrant workers and whose law permits the stripping of nationality without a statelessness safeguard.58 37. In 2005, the UAE Government passed a resolution to expeditiously find a solution to the “Bidoon” issue.59 38. In 2006, the UAE Government announced the naturalisation of 1294 persons who had proof that they had resided in the UAE since before its establishment and had no 51 UN Human Rights Council, ‘Report of the Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review: United Arab Emirates’, A/HRC/23/13, (21 March 2013), Recommendation 128.105, available at: https://www.uprinfo.org/sites/default/files/documents/2013-10/ahrc2313e.pdf. 52 U.S. Department of State, ‘2021 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: United Arab Emirates’, available at: https://www.state.gov/reports/2021-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/united-arab-emirates/. 53 CERD, ‘Concluding Observations on the Combined Eighteenth to Twenty-First Periodic reports of the United Arab Emirates’, CERD/C/ARE/CO/18-21, (13 September 2017), paras 27-28, available at: https://documents-ddsny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G17/266/53/PDF/G1726653.pdf?OpenElement. 54 A. Zacharias, “Citizenship Hope for UAE’s Stateless”, The National, (July 31 2012), available at: https://www.thenationalnews.com/uae/citizenship-hope-for-uae-s-stateless-1.362084. 55 Nationality Law of 1972, Art. 2. 56 B. L. Fisher (2016), “Gender discrimination and statelessness in the Gulf Cooperation Council states”, Michigan Journal of Gender & Law, 23(2), p. 283, available at: http://repository.law.umich.edu/mjgl/vol23/iss2/1. 57 UN Human Rights Council, ‘Report of the Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, Githu Muigai, Addendum Mission to the United Arab Emirates’, (31 March 2010), paras. 44-54, available at https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/681194?ln=en. 58 This figure comes from United Nations estimates. UNDataApp: United Arab Emirates, see: http://data.un.org/en/iso/ae.html. Since 2005, the UAE has not had a nation-wide census or published detailed breakdown of migrant and national population. In 2019, the UAE announced a transition to an administrative census though the results of this census have not been made publicly available. UAE Ministry of Cabinet Affairs, “The UAE Administrative Census Project 2020 Launched,” available at: https://fcsc.gov.ae/en-us/Pages/Press-Release/02-07-2019.aspx; Individual Emirates have selectively published data on the breakdown between nationals and non-nationals on their territory. Abu Dhabi’s 2020 Statistical Yearbook mentions that noncitizens comprise 81% of the population. Abu Dhabi Statistics Centre, Abu Dhabi Statistical Yearbook 2020, p. 93, available at: https://www.scad.gov.ae/Release%20Documents/Statistical%20Yearbook%20of%20Abu%20Dhabi_2020_Annual_Yearly_en.pd f. 59 U.A.E. Federal Supreme Council (2006) Resolution (2) of 2005 Concerning the Problem of Stateless Persons (the Bidoon), (28 September 2005), available at https://lexmena.com/law/ar_fed~2005-12-03_00002_2020-01-27/. 9