International Journal of Refugee Law, 2026, Vol. 00, Issue 00 • 21 5.2. Deterritorializing and commodifying protection The comparison of bilateral agreements in the contexts of asylum seeking, irregular migration, and statelessness also highlights a growing deterritorialization and commodification of protection. ‘Deterritorialization’ can be understood as a process of ‘the weakening of ties with, detachment from, or a movement away from a particular territory or system of territoriality’.160 I am using ‘deterritorialization of protection’ to refer to the erosion of the link between territorial presence and states’ protection obligations. In the turn to bilateral agreements in response to asylum seeking and irregular migration, we are witnessing a weakening of the connection between presence on the territory and the triggering of protection obligations that states owe to asylum seekers and irregular migrants. As discussed above, outsourced migration arrangements often attempt to evade the activation of jurisdiction that occurs with territorial presence or the exercise of effective control extraterritorially.161 At the same time, through the shifting of asylum processing and resettlement away from the territory of destination States, it is arguable that bilateral agreements in this context are contributing to the deterritorialization of the concept of See Daniel Ghezelbash, Refuge Lost: Asylum Law in an Interdependent World (Cambridge University Press 2018); Tennis (n 124). 158 Tomas Gammeltoft-Hansen and Nikolas Feith Tan, ‘Extraterritorial Migration Control and Deterrence’ in Cathryn Costello, Michelle Foster and Jane McAdam (eds) Oxford Handbook in International Refugee Law (OUP 2021) 804. 159 UNHCR, ‘Global Action Plan to End Statelessness 2014–2024’. 160 Gail Lythgoe (ed) The Rebirth of Territory (Cambridge University Press 2024) 33. 161 Dana Schmalz, ‘The Role of Proximity for States’ Obligations toward Persons Seeking Protection’ in Ayelet Shachar and Seyla Benhabib (eds), Lawless Zones, Rightless Subjects: Migration, Asylum, and Shifting Borders (Cambridge University Press 2025) 81. 157 Downloaded from academic.oup.com/ijrl/advance-article/doi/10.1093/ijrl/eeag028/8767365 by guest on 08 October 2026 This can have value in predicting the likelihood of States turning to bilateral agreements in other contexts. This comparison also suggests that there is a real risk that addressing in situ statelessness through the supply of foreign passports may become a popular policy among states. Refugee law scholars have traced the global spread of the policy of externalized border-control arrangements, locating the starting point in the United States-Haiti Agreement in 1981 and observing how, once adopted by a dyad of states, such a policy response gains legitimacy.157 Although such agreements were once initiated by Global North countries, in recent years Global South countries have been adopting externalized arrangements in response to the regional movement of asylum seekers and irregular migrants.158 The risk of other States following in the UAE’s footsteps is heightened due to the protracted and intractable nature of many instances of in situ statelessness worldwide, such as the position of the Rohingya population in Myanmar and people of Haitian descent in the Dominican Republic. These situations remain unresolved because of the unwillingness of the host state to adopt the approach to resolving statelessness advocated by the UNHCR and embodied in the recently concluded global statelessness campaign, the Global Action Plan to End Statelessness: granting these populations their nationality.159 Such States often reject the contention that these groups ‘belong’ to the nation, often arguing instead that they belong to another country. For these states, under international pressure to respond to the issue, but often internal pressure to sequester these groups, the grant of foreign passports may be viewed as an attractive solution. Framing the UAE’s agreement with the Comoros as an externalization agreement highlights the risk of the spread of this response to statelessness.