International Journal of Refugee Law, 2026, Vol. 00, Issue 00 • 17 4.1. ‘Undesirable’ populations In both the contexts of statelessness on the one hand, and irregular migration and asylum seeking on the other hand, States are turning to bilateral agreements in response to populations deemed ‘undesirable’ by the State. The Gulf states’ turn to the Comoros in an effort to address the statelessness of the bidun stems from their distrust of these groups. The UAE views those without passports as foreign nationals who travelled to the country and destroyed their passports in order to benefit from the country’s rapid economic growth.135 Kuwait also views the bidun as nationals of other countries, illegally residing in the country in an attempt to gain access to state benefits.136 Additionally, the Kuwaiti Government has viewed the bidun as a security threat; during the country’s war with Iraq, some bidun were forced to fight with Iraq, leading to the stigmatization and labelling of the entire group as traitors.137 The reluctance to extend nationality to the bidun populations is consistent with a broader policy of holding at arms-length other groups deemed to be ‘foreigners’ in the Gulf countries.138 More broadly, most in situ stateless populations–like the bidun of the UAE and Kuwait–are stateless as a result of a deliberate and intentional state policy to deny them nationality.139 Statelessness is often a product of the discriminatory denial of nationality to certain minority groups, often on racial, ethnic, or religious grounds. The UNHCR estimates that 75 per cent of the world’s stateless people belong to minority groups,140 a figure which points to the significance of discrimination as a cause of statelessness. In other words, the bidun are stateless because of the deliberate policy of the State to deny them nationality. The failure of the Gulf States to resolve the statelessness of the bidun in the most straightforward way–through the grant of their own nationality–is indicative of their view that it is undesirable to incorporate these groups into their national polities. ‘Cooperation Agreement on security and the Fight Against Crime’ (30 April 2022) based upon the ‘Treaty of Friendship, Good Neighbourliness and Cooperation between the Kingdom of Spain and the Kingdom of Morocco’ (4 July 1991). 135 Muawia E Ibrahim, ‘“No Stateless People in UAE”’ Khaleej Times (2 April 2015) <https://www.khaleejtimes.com/article/no-stateless-people-in-uae> accessed 21 March 2024. 136 Human Rights Watch, ‘World Report 2013: Kuwait’ (World Report 2013, 31 January 2013) <https:// www.hrw.org/world-report/2013/country-chapters/kuwait> accessed 5 March 2024. 137 ‘Bidoon in Kuwait’ (Minority Rights Group, 16 October 2023) <https://minorityrights.org/communities/ bidoon/> accessed 3 June 2025. 138 See Lori (n 8). 139 See Neha Jain, ‘Manufacturing Statelessness’ (2022) 116 American Journal of International Law 237; Michelle Foster and Jade Roberts, ‘Manufacturing Foreigners: The Law and Politics of Transforming Citizens into Migrants’ Research Handbook on the Law and Politics of Migration (Edward Elgar Publishing 2021). 140 ‘Stateless Minorities and Their Search for Citizenship’ (UNHCR 2017) 1. 134 Downloaded from academic.oup.com/ijrl/advance-article/doi/10.1093/ijrl/eeag028/8767365 by guest on 08 October 2026 relation to maritime interception in the Central Mediterranean, and Spain’s bilateral arrangements with Morocco concerning border surveillance, returns, and border control.134 Despite variations in their specific purposes, there are common features throughout all types of bilateral agreements adopted in the context of asylum seeking and irregular migration. This section examines these features and draws parallels to the UAE’s arrangement with the Comoros and Kuwait’s contemplated arrangement with the Comoros. It advances the argument that bilateral responses to statelessness should also be understood as attempts by states to avoid or outsource their protection obligations. It then identifies lessons learned from this comparison.