S TAT E L E S S B Y D E C R E E Kuwait's heightened obligations as a Human Rights Council (HRC) member In 2023, Kuwait was elected to the 47-member United Nations Human Rights Council for the 2024–2026 term. Under paragraph 9 of UN General Assembly Resolution 60/251, Council members are expected to “uphold the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights.” Membership therefore entails a heightened expectation of compliance with evolving international human rights standards. However, Kuwait ʼs new nationality framework flouts the Councilʼs June 2023 resolution on equality in nationality rights. 32 The resolution: "Urges all States to refrain from enacting or maintaining discriminatory nationality legislation, policies and practices, in a manner consistent with their respective obligations under international law, with a view to avoiding statelessness and loss of nationality, preventing vulnerability to human rights violations and abuses, decreasing the risk of exploitation and abuse, and eliminating discrimination against all women and girls in the acquisition, change, retention or conferral of nationality.” It fur ther encourages a review of laws and practices that cause statelessness and requires safeguards ensuring equality between men and women in the conferral of nationality and access to documentation. The GoK has expressly ignored the overwhelmingly majority of specif ic concerns raised by successive UN treaty bodies, special procedures and par tner governments - as par t of the UPR, as well as repeated appeals from civil society from 2024 to 2026. 33 The GoK has instead continued to entrench discriminatory nationality laws, resist accountability mechanisms, and strip tens of thousands of people of citizenship without due process, in direct contravention of its international obligations. This pattern of non-compliance is not incidental: it reflects a deliberate and sustained policy choice to subordinate international human rights obligations to domestic law and practice, a choice that has directly enabled the arbitrary deprivation of nationality of tens of thousands of individuals. The GoK is standing for re -election to the 2027-2029 cycle of the Human Rights Council. States are permitted to stand and be members of the Human Rights Council for two consecutive cycles. The International Service for Human Rights has issued a scorecard (see image below) that offers a quick 'at-a-glance' of Kuwait ʼs human rights record through criteria focusing on its cooperation with UN human rights bodies. Through Council membership, States commit themselves to “uphold the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights”, and to fully cooperate with the Council and its mechanisms. As the GoK doesn't meet 13 of the 17 scorecard criteria, our organisations conclude that Kuwait does not comply with the Human Rights Council membership criteria. 18