S TAT E L E S S B Y D E C R E E S TAT E L E S S B Y D E C R E E TEXT BOX 1 The highly restricted scope for acquisition of Kuwaiti citizenship Following the enactment of law passed in December 2024 (see below) which removed the naturalisation of non-Kuwaiti women who marry male Kuwaiti nationals, citizenship is conferred through patrilineal descent or, exceptionally, could be acquired through government decree. The 1959 Nationality Law and amendments to December 2024 describe the following grounds for acquisition of nationality: • Article 1 Article 1 sets out a restrictive, historical basis for nationality. It states that: ʻOriginal Kuwaiti nationals are those persons who were settled in Kuwait prior to 1920 and who maintained their normal residence there [...]” Such persons are termed “first class citizens”. • Article 2 states that “Any person born in, or outside, Kuwait whose father is a Kuwaiti national shall be a Kuwaiti national himself.” Article 3 provides for citizenship in respect to a foundling, or orphan, whose kinship to the father is not legally established, upon reaching maturity.44 This provision, however, did not grant automatic citizenship to children of Kuwaiti mothers and foreign fathers. • Article 3 provides for the treatment as Kuwaiti of foundlings and any person born in or outside Kuwait to a Kuwaiti mother where the father (and his nationality) is not known or cannot be determined, until majority, when the Minister of Interior will rule whether the person can be granted citizenship;45 • Article 4 provides for the discretionary granting of citizenship by Minister of Interior decree according to criteria including (4.1) lawful residence for 20 years; 15 if an Arab; (4.2) gainfully employed and free of “honour” and “honesty” linked convictions; (4.3) speaking Arabic; (4.4) relevant qualifications; (4.5) Muslim and if by conversion then for five years, where it is lost by a proven deviation away from Islam. Article 4 provides for a committee to adjudicate naturalisation demands; �� Article 5, likewise provides for naturalisation by decree on the basis of (5.1) significant act or service to Kuwait;46 • Article 7 (following the enactment of Decree Law 116/2024) provides for the naturalisation of children (born in Kuwait) to a naturalised male, to be determined within one year of reaching majority;47 • Article 7 bis (bis is a legal term that denotes a second, additional or corollary item) empowers the Minister of Interior to treat, on a discretionary basis, the minor child born to a Kuwaiti mother, where the non-Kuwaiti father is “a prisoner of war, has irrevocably divorced his mother, or has passed away” in the same manner as a Kuwaiti until the age of majority; • Article 8 (following the enactment of Decree Law 116/2024) states only that marriage of a non-Kuwaiti woman to a Kuwaiti does not automatically grant her citizenship; • Article 12 provides for the re-acquisition of nationality by women in reference to marriage but it is based on laws amended or repealed in December 2024 and its application, in practice, appears either impossible or highly unlikely. OVERVIEW 1122