Beyond Law: Alternative Mechanisms for Reigning in Weaponised Citizenship To be clear, inter-state leverage and power politics are in no way a substitute for creating robust protections for minority and stateless populations in international law. I differ from Spiro who argues that ‘to the extent that citizenship adds anything to the state’s policy armoury, it has been mostly defused,’271 implying that we may not need to turn to international law to curtail weaponised citizenship because states already sanction each other. While I agree that states respond to each other’s behaviours when it comes to issuing passports, they currently do so unevenly and in ways that may reward oppressive nationality attributions. For example, after the UAE outsourced passports from the Union of Comoros, the rankings of the Comoros passport declined because other states considered the Comoros passport security to be compromised, which also instigated internal investigations of former President Ahmed Abdallah Mohamed Sambi.272 Meanwhile, the UAE passport ranking soared, largely due to the fact that it had successfully signed a Schengen visawaiver with the EU in 2015.273 This example may suggest that depending upon inter-state leverage will inevitably lead to greater weaponisation because citizenship matters would depend upon the willingness of weaker states to expend political capital on taking up the cause of granting citizenship to minorities in powerful states. However, the EU’s role and its impact on the UAE passport ranking complicates this picture. Had the EU actually addressed the UAE’s oppressive nationality practices when negotiating the visa-waiver, it could have asserted considerable leverage. The system will not self-correct in ways that align with human rights, but lobbying efforts can redirect pressures towards greater protections in a structurally interdependent system. States, regional, and international entities can be lobbied to take oppressive nationality practices into account when negotiating visa-waivers and mobility agreements, or build in clauses in agreements that withhold certain benefits (i.e. market access, development aid, weapon sales) from states that practice weaponised citizenship. Such efforts would not replace but rather supplement attempts to use international law and norms to constrain weaponised citizenship practices. 271 Spiro 2023. 272 Lewis D. and Ahmed A., ‘Exclusive: Comoros passport scheme was unlawful, abused by 'mafia' networks – report’, Reuters, 23 March 2018, Exclusive: Comoros passport scheme was unlawful, abused by 'mafia' networks - report | Reuters. 273 Agreement between the European Union and the United Arab Emirates on the short-stay visa waiver, 6 May 2015, Doc. 22015A0521(01). European University Institute 46