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The waterfront skyline of Abu Dhabi, capital of the UAE. Photo: Tim Pile

UN court orders UAE to protect rights of Qataris in wake of diplomatic breakdown

The UAE demanded Qataris leave the country last year, but the International Court of Justice has ruled that families with Qatari members must be reunited, and Qatari students be allowed to complete studies in the UAE

Middle East

The UN’s top court on Monday ordered the United Arab Emirates to protect the rights of Qatari citizens, wading into a bitter year-long crisis triggered when Gulf countries snapped ties with Doha.

Judges at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague narrowly ruled in a provisional but binding decision that the UAE must allow families which include Qatari members, to be reunited, and that Qatari students must be given the chance to complete their education in the Emirates.

Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the UAE and other allies severed ties with Qatar on June 7, 2017, accusing Doha of backing terrorism. Qatari nationals living in the UAE were officially given just 14 days to leave the country.
People gather outside a branch of Qatar Airways in the United Arab Emirate of Abu Dhabi on June 6, 2017, a day before the UAE cut diplomatic ties with Qatar and gave Qataristwo weeks to leave the country. Photo: Agence France-Presse

But Doha denies the accusations, and last month appealed to the ICJ to impose emergency measures against the UAE to protect its citizens. It has also accused Abu Dhabi of breaking the 1965 International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD).

In a hearing in late June, Qatar alleged that the United Arab Emirates was spreading a “climate of fear” among Qataris living there, splitting families and causing “substantial pain” during the year-long blockade.

On Monday, the court’s judges found in Doha’s favour, ruling the measures imposed by the UAE risked causing “irreparable harm” to Qatari citizens.

The judges ruled by eight votes to seven in favour of a series of provisional measures that the UAE “must ensure that families, that include a Qatari, separated by the measures adopted by the United Arab Emirates … are reunited,” said presiding judge Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf.

Qatari students must also be allowed “to complete their education” in the Emirates or obtain their educational records if they wish to study elsewhere. Qataris “affected” by the UAE measures must also be allowed “access to tribunals and other judicial organs” in the country.

Qatar welcomed Monday’s ruling, with foreign ministry spokesman Ahmed bin Saeed al-Rumaihi saying in a tweet that his country “was not seeking to escalate the dispute with the Emirates, but to repair the prejudice imposed on its citizens”.

The move into the international courts came a year after the severing of ties and the imposition of punitive measures by Gulf countries accusing Doha of backing terrorism.

Other measures included banning Qatar Airways from their airspace and closing the country’s only land border, with Saudi Arabia.

The UAE had insisted the ICJ had no authority to hear Qatar’s case and stressed the situation for Qataris living in the country today is different from a year ago.

In a statement, the UAE highlighted that the court’s decision involved only “provisional measures” and that “the court indicated certain measures with which the UAE is already in compliance”.

“Instead of these unproductive manoeuvres, Qatar should be engaging with the legitimate concerns of the UAE and the other three states that have ended relations with Qatar regarding its continuing support for terrorism and its efforts to destabilise the region,” it added in a statement quoted by the Emirates WAM news agency.

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: UN court orders UAE to ensure rights of Qataris
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