SALAM DHR, GCHR, MENA Rights Group, ISI and others — "Stateless by Decree: End Kuwait's Citizenship Stripping Crisis" (July 2026)

METHOD. The report states five sources: 38 testimonies, "mainly women's", including more than ten in-depth interviews; an assessment of international and domestic law; a discourse analysis of more than a year of media reporting and government statements; group sessions, including an X "Space" held on 14 August 2025; and coalition members' own reports.

INTERNATIONAL LAW. The report applies the Principles on Deprivation of Nationality as a National Security Measure: deprivation must pursue a legitimate purpose, be provided by law, be necessary and proportionate, and follow procedural safeguards; it must not cause statelessness or discriminate. It relies on UDHR Art. 15, ICCPR Arts. 2(3), 14 and 26, CERD Art. 5(d)(iii) and the Arab Charter Art. 12. It notes Kuwait's reservations to CEDAW Art. 9(2) (nationality of children) and Art. 16(1)(f), and records that the CEDAW Committee in 2024 found the latter incompatible with the Convention's object and purpose. It records that 16 states made nationality recommendations at Kuwait's May 2025 Universal Periodic Review and that Kuwait "noted" all of them (among them the United Kingdom, on continued access to services for "Article 8" women, and the Netherlands, on judicial oversight). Kuwait is a Human Rights Council member for 2024–2026 and, the report says, a candidate for 2027–2029.

DOMESTIC LAW. Article 27 of the Constitution leaves nationality to be "determined by law". The report states that the Court of Cassation ruled on 17 April 2022 that nationality questions are "acts of sovereignty" outside judicial review, reportedly on the basis of Article 2 of Decree 23/1990 on the Organisation of the Judiciary, and that Decree-Law 158/2024 provides that nationality decisions are "not subject to appeal under any circumstances". Decree-Laws 116/2024 and 158/2024 are dated 23 and 31 December 2024. Decree-Law 52/2026 was issued on 5 April 2026 and published in Kuwait Al-Youm on 13 April 2026 (issue 1786, supplement 2). The Grievance Committee created on 11 March 2025 by Cabinet Resolution 207/2025 (amended by 493/2025) sits under the Council of Ministers, and the report says it lacks independence. The one-year grace period to regularise status ran from 1 June 2025.

SCALE AND IMPACT. The report cites the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls: between 40,000 and 60,000 people affected as of August 2025, women disproportionately, especially those naturalised by marriage under the former Article 8. It states that at least 26,000 of more than 37,000 documented revocations as of August 2025 affected women. Consequences it records from testimony and from the Special Rapporteur: frozen bank accounts, loss of property, jobs, pensions and subsidised housing, loss of access to education and travel. It distinguishes those affected from the Bidoon ("approximately 92,000 or more").

RECOMMENDATIONS. End statelessness in Kuwait by 2030; work with UNHCR and civil society; suspend revocations until the Nationality Law meets international standards; guarantee basic needs, bank access, property and documents for those affected; reinstate nationality withdrawn without independent review and due process.

USE IN A REPORT: this is a coalition advocacy report, useful for its legal analysis, its testimony (anonymised) and its collection of UN and UPR material in one place. Cite the law to the decree-laws themselves and each figure to whoever first stated it; do not cite the report's own estimates or its event sample as data (see the comment).

Three cautions before this report is relied on. First, its own numbers conflict: a table in the report gives "10,000 (this report's estimate)" as the total impacted by the 2024/2025 measures, while its text relies on 37,000–60,000 from other sources and quotes a claim that the number "approached 70,000". Second, the authors state that they uploaded about 114 pages of media reports to ChatGPT 5.2 and asked it to structure them into a chronological table of revocation events; they describe that sample themselves as "unscientific or proxy" and "symbolically representative". It is not a count and should not be cited as one. Third, the report says the coalition had no access to the Official Gazette, so its account of individual decrees rests on press reports.

Its dates for the decree-laws agree with the Dossier's nationality entry (Decree-Law No. 52 of 2026: issued 5 April, Gazette 13 April 2026). Its figure of 40,000–60,000 is the one in the Special Rapporteur's formal report (A/HRC/62/49/Add.1, on the Dossier).