International Journal of Refugee Law, 2026, 00, 1–23 https://doi.org/10.1093/ijrl/eeag028 Article Jade Roberts * Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness, Melbourne Law School, Carlton, Australia *Correspondence to: jade.roberts@unimelb.edu.au Abstract Bilateral agreements are an increasingly common mode of state responses to the phenomenon of asylum seeking and irregular migration. Less well-known are bilateral responses to statelessness. In 2008, the United Arab Emirates concluded an arrangement with the Union of the Comoros to supply Comorian passports to the United Arab Emirates’ stateless bidun population in exchange for the payment of US$200 million. In 2014, Kuwait contemplated a similar arrangement with the small, East African island nation. This article examines the legality of the bilateral agreement made between the United Arab Emirates and the Comoros. It draws comparisons between this arrangement and bilateral responses to asylum seeking and irregular migration and it identifies lessons learned from this comparison. When placed side by side, it argues that bilateral agreements in both contexts are indicative of a growing deterritorialization and commodification of protection. 1. Introduction States, particularly those in the Global North, are increasingly responding to the arrival of asylum seekers and irregular migrants through the conclusion of bilateral agreements. These agreements attempt to shift the functions of controlling migration and processing asylum claims to other countries, with the overarching aim of reducing the number of asylum seekers and irregular migrants reaching a country’s borders.1 This practice is variously referred 1 She is grateful to the handling editor and the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments, which greatly improved this analysis. Bill Frelick, Ian M Kysel and Jennifer Podkul, ‘The Impact of Externalization of Migration Controls on the Rights of Asylum Seekers and Other Migrants’ (2016) 4 Journal on Migration & Human Security 190, 191. © The Author(s) (2026). Published by Oxford University Press. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial reproduction and distribution of the work, in any medium, provided the original work is not altered or transformed in any way, and that the work is properly cited. For commercial re-use, please contact reprints@oup.com for reprints and translation rights for reprints. All other permissions can be obtained through our RightsLink service via the Permissions link on the article page on our site—for further information please contact journals.permissions@oup.com. Downloaded from academic.oup.com/ijrl/advance-article/doi/10.1093/ijrl/eeag028/8767365 by guest on 08 October 2026 Outsourcing protection: lessons from bilateral responses to statelessness