United Arab Emirates: Temporary Multiculturalism, but Permanent Legal Pluralism?

Abstract

AbstractWhile multiculturalism is a main characteristic of society in the United Arab Emirates, the federation of seven emirates cannot be described as an immigration country per se. Rather, the United Arab Emirates form a multicultural society by necessity. The country’s immigration system is primarily oriented to immigration of a temporary nature, as labor migration is not designed to be permanent. Instead, foreigners are generally expected to return to their home countries once their employment has come to an end. Nonetheless, the multicultural and multinational makeup of the United Arab Emirates and the country’s historically developed legal pluralism give rise to multiple challenges both in domestic family law and in Emirati private international law. A clear division of family and succession law along religious lines (as regards substantive law and, more recently, jurisdiction of the courts) and the heterogeneous demographic setting of the United Arab Emirates result in the application of various family law regimes, largely depending on both the nationality and the religious affiliation of the parties. At the same time, the reality of multinationalism has not yet been fully embraced by all fragments of society. This can be seen in the debate surrounding interreligious and binational marriages as well as in the country’s private international law regime.