14 • International Journal of Refugee Law, 2026, Vol. 00, Issue 00 Complementing the concept of one’s ‘own country’ is the idea that nationality should involve ‘a genuine connection’. In the case of Nottebohm, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) commented that nationality should have: The concept of ‘genuine connection’, like the concept of one’s ‘own country’, has value in the context of states’ obligations in respect of statelessness.111 These concepts can anchor the otherwise free-floating nature of the right to a nationality (which does not specify which country has the corresponding obligation to grant their nationality) by suggesting that stateless people have a right to the nationality of a country to which they have a genuine connection. The UAE’s agreement with the Comoros violated the importance of one’s ‘own country’ and the idea that nationality should involve a ‘genuine connection’. It ignored the connection and claims of the bidun to the UAE and instead granted a passport to a country not based on any link between the recipients and the country. Indeed, as the next section explains, the passports did not entitle the bidun to even enter the Comoros, meaning they prevented such a connection or link from developing. Indeed, Goodwin-Gill has suggested that the criteria set out by the ICJ in Nottebohm (‘a social fact of attachment, a genuine connection of existence, interests and sentiments’) indicate the circumstances in which a state should be ‘considered bound by other incidental obligations, such as that of non-expulsion, readmission, and a certain standard of treatment’.112 In other words, these circumstances should trigger states’ obligations that are owed to nationals, generating the status of effective, if not de jure, nationality for the affected persons. As Foster and Lambert observed in 2016, ‘jurisprudential developments in international and regional human rights law have progressed considerably closer to achieving this goal’.113 More recently, Bronwen Manby has characterized jurisprudence on this point, in particular from African institutions, as ‘hav[ing] provided the Nottebohm judgment with an afterlife that was not imagined by the ICJ in 1955’.114 It is arguable, then, that the concepts of one’s ‘own country’, ‘a genuine connection’ and ‘effective nationality’ strengthen the argument that the bidun population of the UAE have claims to nationality of that country–the country to which they have ‘special ties to or claims in relation to’. Instead of recognizing and giving effect to these claims to nationality, however, the bilateral agreement transformed the bidun into foreigners in their own country. 3.4. Obligations in respect of the quality or substance of nationality This section advances the argument that the grant of Comorian passports to the bidun of the UAE did not amount to the grant of Comorian nationality, because what was granted did not Nottebohm Case (Liechtenstein v Guatemala) (Judgment) [1955] ICJ Rep 4 (International Court of Justice) 23. 111 Rabuffetti and Wills (n 8) 85; Manby (n 98). 112 Guy S Goodwin-Gill, ‘The Rights of Refugees and Stateless Persons’ in KP Saksena (ed), Human Rights Perspective and Challenges (in 1990 and Beyond) (Lancers Books 1994) 378 113 Foster and Lambert (n 97) 574. 114 Manby (n 98) 57. 110 Downloaded from academic.oup.com/ijrl/advance-article/doi/10.1093/ijrl/eeag028/8767365 by guest on 08 October 2026 as its basis a social fact of attachment, a genuine connection of existence, interests and sentiments… It may be said to constitute the juridical expression of the fact that the individual upon whom it is conferred, either directly by the law or as a result of an act of the authorities, is in fact more closely connected with the population of the State conferring nationality than with that of any other State.110