Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion, the Global Campaign for Equal Nationality Rights and the European Saudi Organization for Human Rights Joint Submission to the Human Rights Council at the 31st Session of the Universal Periodic Review Saudi Arabia Introduction 1. The Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion (the Institute),1 the European Saudi Organization for Human Right (ESOHR)2, and the Global Campaign for Equal Nationality Rights (GCENR)3, welcome the opportunity to make this submission to the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) in relation to discrimination in nationality laws, statelessness and related human rights challenges in Saudi Arabia. 2. The Institute is an independent non-profit organisation dedicated to promoting an integrated, human rights based response to the injustice of statelessness and exclusion. Established in August 2014, it is the first and only global centre committed to promoting the human rights of stateless persons and ending statelessness. The Institute has made over 30 country specific UPR submissions on the human rights of stateless persons, and also compiled summaries of the key human rights challenges related to statelessness in all countries under review under the 23rd to the 30th UPR Sessions.4 3. The European Saudi Organization for Human Rights (ESOHR), is an independent and non-profit human rights organisation, whose work focuses on Saudi Arabia. It was founded in August 2013, in response to the human rights violations being perpetrated inside Saudi Arabia. Due to repression of civil society within Saudi Arabia, which makes human rights work impossible, ESOHR operates outside of Saudi Arabia from its headquarters in the German capital Berlin and has representatives in London and Beirut. 4. The Global Campaign for Equal Nationality Rights mobilises international action for the removal of gender discriminatory provisions from all nationality laws through its coalition of national and international organisations and activists. 5. This joint submission addresses two main issues: discrimination against women in nationality legislation, and the protracted statelessness experienced by certain groups in the country. Both of these issues create and/or prolong statelessness, while also negatively impacting a range of other human rights. 1 See www.institutesi.org/ See www.esohr.org/en/ 3 See www.equalnationalityrights.org 4 For more information on the Institute’s UPR advocacy, see http://www.statelessnessandhumanrights.org/upr-universal-periodicreview/resources-database. 2