International Journal of Refugee Law, 2026, Vol. 00, Issue 00 • 19 4.3. Unequal economic power and high costs In both the contexts of statelessness and asylum seeking and irregular migration, bilateral agreements have been concluded between countries with unequal economic power, involving the payment of money to the partner State in exchange for undertaking migration functions for the first State. The bilateral agreements concluded and contemplated by the oil-rich Gulf countries were undertaken with one of the poorest nations in the world, where 45 per cent of the population live below the poverty line.151 With little industry and opportunity for revenue, the bulk sale of passports to the UAE and Kuwait represented a lucrative proposition for the Comoros. Indeed, the payment from the UAE to the Comoros amounted to approximately one-quarter of the country’s annual Gross Domestic Product.152 See Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen, Access to Asylum: International Refugee Law and the Globalisation of Migration Control (Cambridge University Press 2011); Violeta Moreno Lax, Accessing Asylum in Europe: Extraterritorial Border Controls and Refugee Rights Under EU Law (First edition., Oxford University Press 2017). 147 See Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen and James C Hathaway, ‘Non-Refoulement in a World of Cooperative Deterrence’ (2014) 53 Columbia Journal of Transnational Law 235; Guy S Goodwin-Gill, ‘The Right to Seek Asylum: Interception at Sea and the Principle of Non-Refoulement’ (2011) 23 International Journal of Refugee Law 443. 148 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees (adopted 28 July 1951, entered into force 22 April 1954) 189 UNTS 137 (1951 Convention), article 35. 149 See Volker Turk, ‘UNHCR’s Supervisory Responsibility’ (UNHCR 2002) Working Paper 67. 150 James C Hathaway, Anthony M North and Jason Pobjoy, ‘Supervising the Refugee Convention’ (2013) 26 Journal of Refugee Studies 323, 324. 151 Lori (n 8) 220. 152 ibid 70. 146 Downloaded from academic.oup.com/ijrl/advance-article/doi/10.1093/ijrl/eeag028/8767365 by guest on 08 October 2026 Bilateral agreements in the context of asylum seeking and irregular migration can also be understood as attempts to exploit the perceived ambiguity in respect of States’ obligations owed towards these populations. Externalization agreements attempt to circumvent obligations arising under the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees 1951 (1951 Convention) and international human rights law, often by attempting to sever or otherwise deny the territorial link that would trigger states’ jurisdiction and thus their legal responsibility. Refugee law scholars have observed that externalization measures such as maritime interception, offshore processing, and carrier sanctions are specifically designed to prevent territorial access and therefore the triggering of States’ legal obligations in respect of asylum,146 in particular the obligation of non-refoulement.147 This legal manoeuvring is likely enabled by a lack of accountability in respect of states’ treatment of asylum seekers and irregular migrants. The 1951 Convention does require State parties to cooperate with UNHCR in the exercise of its functions, and in particular ‘facilitate its duty of supervising the application of the provisions of this Convention’. 148 However, it is debated whether this provision positions UNHCR as the supervisory body of the 1951 Convention,149 or whether the organization’s functions in the refugee context are facilitative and coordinative in nature, and not to assess States’ compliance with the Convention.150 There are also few pathways to legal accountability in this context, although claims concerning the rights of asylum seekers and irregular migrants have been made in domestic and regional courts and to human rights treaty body committees. In both contexts, the turn to bilateral agreements reflects the perception that States’ discretion in matters of nationality and the management of borders remains largely unconstrained and unchecked.