Kuwait Nationality Law No. 15 of 1959 (as amended) — the primary domestic legal instrument underlying every Bidoon case

The Kuwaiti statute every UK tribunal decision, CPIN, and NGO report above ultimately traces back to: Bidoon statelessness exists BECAUSE this 1959 law (and its administration since) excluded them from citizenship at and after Kuwait's 1961 independence, and continues to exclude their Kuwait-born descendants today. USE IN A REPORT/BEFORE A TRIBUNAL: an expert report addressing the LEGAL ROOT of statelessness (as opposed to only its practical consequences) should engage with the Law's actual citizenship-by-descent and naturalisation provisions directly, not only secondary commentary on it — this is exactly the kind of primary-source engagement that distinguishes a strong expert report from one that only restates the CPIN in the expert's own words. (Year of enactment is precisely known; a specific calendar day is not recorded in this entry and should be independently verified against the Kuwaiti Official Gazette (Kuwait Al-Yaum) before being cited to a tribunal.)

UPDATE (verified via UNHCR Refworld, September 2026): Refworld's own page for this translation states that a further amendment was adopted in 2023, published only in Arabic with no official or unofficial English translation currently available: https://www.refworld.org/legal/legislation/natlegbod/2023/ar/149578 — its content has not been reviewed for this entry. Any submission relying on the citizenship-by-descent/naturalisation provisions above as reflecting current law should independently confirm they have not been altered by that 2023 amendment.

The legal root of the whole issue; engaging with its actual text strengthens an expert report beyond restating the CPIN.

The English translation cited above (Refworld) runs to 1987. Four decree-laws since December 2024, each read in its published Arabic text, change the Law in ways that bear directly on nationality, statelessness and revocation cases.

DECREE-LAW No. 116 OF 2024 (issued 16 Jumada al-Akhira 1446, December 2024). According to its explanatory memorandum, it:
- ended acquisition of nationality through marriage, both for the wife of a naturalised foreigner and for the foreign wife of a Kuwaiti (Arts. 7 and 8);
- added Art. 7 bis (a), allowing minors of a Kuwaiti mother to be treated as Kuwaiti until majority where the foreign father is a prisoner, has divorced her irrevocably or has died;
- allowed "modern scientific means" to be used in granting, withdrawing or losing nationality (Art. 20);
- rewrote the grounds for withdrawing naturalisation (Art. 13);
- repealed Art. 5(ii) and (iii) and Art. 9.

DECREE-LAW No. 158 OF 2024 (Kuwait Al-Youm No. 1719, supplement, 30 December 2024) added paragraphs to Art. 16 on the consequences of losing nationality. Withdrawal for fraud (Arts. 13(1) and 21 bis (a)) entails recovery of all benefits received. Loss, withdrawal or revocation on the other listed grounds entails deprivation of all benefits. In other cases the Council of Ministers may preserve some rights and benefits, "guaranteeing in all cases the right to healthcare, education and a decent living". Such Cabinet decisions may not be challenged. The explanatory memorandum describes decisions on nationality as acts of sovereignty outside judicial review.

DECREE-LAW No. 52 OF 2026 (No. 1786, supplement, 13 April 2026) replaced more than a dozen provisions:
- Art. 1 restates who is Kuwaiti by origin.
- Art. 7: a naturalised foreigner's wife does not become Kuwaiti.
- Art. 10: a Kuwaiti woman who acquires her husband's foreign nationality loses hers; a woman naturalised through marriage loses it on the husband's death or divorce if she has no children by him and does not marry a non-Kuwaiti, or if she recovers her original or acquires another nationality or passport.
- Art. 13 lists six grounds for withdrawing a naturalised person's nationality, several of them extending to those who acquired it through him:
1. fraud, forgery or false statements;
2. a final conviction for an offence of honour or trust or against internal or external state security (immediately, if convicted in absentia while abroad);
3. disciplinary dismissal for reasons of honour or trust;
4. the higher interest or external security of the State;
5. new indications of promoting principles that undermine Kuwait's economic, social or political order, or membership of a foreign political body;
6. deliberately adding to a nationality file someone who is not one's descendant, established by the Supreme Committee for Nationality Verification.
- Art. 14 lists grounds for revoking (isqat) anyone's nationality: service in a foreign army without permission; working for a state at war with Kuwait; joining a body aimed at undermining Kuwait's order, which may extend to descendants; and adding a non-descendant to a file.
- Art. 20 permits genetic and biometric evidence in loss, withdrawal or revocation.
- Art. 21 bis (b) punishes false statements to the nationality authorities by up to seven years and KD 5,000.
- Art. 22: "All decrees and decisions relating to nationality are acts of sovereignty, and the courts may not hear them."

DECREE-LAW No. 79 OF 2026 (issued 23 August 2026; No. 1805, supplement, 24 August 2026):
- extended Art. 14(4) to cases established by a final judicial ruling, allowing revocation of descendants where knowledge is proved;
- added to Art. 7 that a person naturalised as Kuwaiti has no right to vote, stand for election or be appointed to any representative body;
- made the nationality certificate electronic (Art. 19 and Art. 3 of the decree-law).

USE IN A REPORT: any statement of current Kuwaiti nationality law must now cite these instruments, not the 1987 translation. Art. 22 as replaced in 2026, together with Art. 2 of the new Judiciary Law (see the entry on Decree-Law No. 80 of 2026), closes the Kuwaiti courts to challenges against nationality decisions. That is directly relevant to whether a person deprived of nationality has any domestic remedy.

SOURCE: the Arabic text was read in full on lawskw.com (Kuwait Laws Portal), a private publisher of consolidated Kuwaiti legislation. The authoritative text is the Official Gazette (Kuwait Al-Youm); gazette numbers and dates above are as shown by the source.

Decrees and decisions use four terms that a report should not conflate: loss of nationality (Arts. 10–11), withdrawal from a naturalised person (Art. 13), revocation, isqat (Art. 14), and withdrawal of the nationality certificate (Art. 21 bis (a)). Their consequences are set by Art. 16, and none of them can be heard by the courts (Art. 22). Published decrees name the person concerned and extend the decision to "whoever acquired nationality through him" without naming those people, so a count of published names understates the number of people affected (see Amnesty International's June 2026 account of the decree against Fawaz Al-Kathiri's father, and GCHR's September 2026 reports, both in this collection).

The Supreme Committee for the Verification of Kuwaiti Nationality was reconstituted by Decree No. 33 of 2026. It is chaired by the First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior, and its members are the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of State for Cabinet Affairs, the Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, and the Secretary-General of the Council of Ministers (Al-Seyassah, Al-Jarida, Al-Rai).

Figures should be cited to whoever stated them:
- the Minister of Interior spoke publicly of about 50,000 withdrawals by August 2025, and said the files of foreign wives of Kuwaitis under Art. 8 had been completed (Al Arabiya, 10 August 2025);
- the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls reported "between 40,000 and 60,000 individuals" affected as of August 2025, and the further withdrawal of the nationality of 2,176 adult children of Kuwaiti mothers by Decree No. 22 of 2026 (A/HRC/62/49/Add.1, 11 June 2026); a figure of "over 70,000" attributed to her in NGO publications does not appear in that report;
- Amnesty International reported more than 1,200 people stripped of nationality by decree on 26 April 2026.

No official cumulative total that includes dependants has been published.