4 LEXICON - TERMS AND ACRONYMS Central System, or Apparatus - A term and institution of the Government of Kuwait (GoK). The Central Agency to Remedy the Situation of ‘Illegal Residents’, most often called, in this report, the Central System, or Apparatus; the Arabic, Jihaz al-Merkezi. It is the government body that oversees all aspects of stateless persons’ lives, from the delivery of birth certificates to identity documents in accordance with access to state services, as well as drivers’ licences and death certificates. Based on available evidence, approached through a human rights lens, we dispute the implications of the use of such terms, as set out below. GCC - Gulf Cooperation Council, the mainly commercial association of six Arab states in the Gulf, consisting of, from north to south, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Oman. Gulf, or the Gulf – this is the term used in this report for the body of water historically and internationally called the Persian Gulf; known in the Arab world as the Arab Gulf and in Turkish, the Gulf of Basra. ISI - Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion, a human rights non-governmental organisation (NGO) that dedicated to promoting the right to nationality and the rights of stateless people globally. GoK - Government of Kuwait MENA - Middle East and North Africa, an acronym often used in international discourse to denote the region from Morocco in the west to Iran in the east and encompassing the Gulf states. PSG - Refers to membership of a ‘particular social group’. According to paragraphs 77-79 of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)’s 2019 (re-issue) Handbook on Procedures and Criteria for Determining Refugee Status under the 1951 Convention and the 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees, ‘Membership of such a particular social group may be at the root of persecution because there is no confidence in the group’s loyalty to the Government or because the political outlook, antecedents or economic activity of its members, or the very existence of the social group as such, is held to be an obstacle to the Government’s policies.’ While perhaps loosely defined, the concept is applied in a wide variety of jurisdictions.1 OHCHR - The United Nations Office of the High Commission for Human Rights, the UN body that administers states’ engagement with legally binding human rights treaties and other mechanisms for the promotion and protection of international human rights standards. SALAM DHR - Salam for Democracy and Human Rights, a mainly UK and Lebanon-based NGO that focuses on Bahrain and other Gulf countries; in relation to human rights and democracy, including the rights of the stateless, including those deprived of citizenship. UNHCR - United Nations High Commission for Refugees, the global, United Nations (UN) body responsible for the assistance and administration of global efforts to deal with statelessness. 1 The Handbook can be accessed at: https://www.unhcr.org/uk/publications/legal/5ddfcdc47/handbook-procedures-criteria-determining-refugee-status-under-1951-convention.html, accessed 29 September 2022.