United Arab Emirates Executive order Enacted 2020-11-07

UAE Federal Decree-Law No. 27/2020 (Family Law Reforms)

تعديلات قانون الأسرة الإماراتي 2020

Summary

Sweeping UAE federal decree-law modernizing family, criminal, and civil-status legislation. Decriminalized cohabitation, alcohol consumption by Muslims, and attempted suicide. Strengthened penalties for honor crimes and harassment of women. Allowed expatriates to use their home-country laws for inheritance and divorce.

Impact

Major social-liberalization milestone in the Gulf alongside Saudi Vision 2030. Positioned the UAE as a competitive destination for Western expatriates and signaled the broader Gulf reform tradition. Aligns with the 2020 Abraham Accords normalization with Israel.

Sources

introduced_date u.ae 2026-06-06

Permalink https://tarekgara.com/tayyar/bills/ae-family-law-2020

How to cite

This is a citation for the legislation itself — credited to Federal National Council of the United Arab Emirates and dated to its 2020 introduction. Tayyar is the retrieval surface, not the author. A separate "Retrieved via" line records that you accessed it through this dataset.

In-text: (Federal National Council of the United Arab Emirates, 2020)

APA 7Institutional author

Federal National Council of the United Arab Emirates. (2020). UAE Federal Decree-Law No. 27/2020 (Family Law Reforms) [Legislation]. https://tarekgara.com/tayyar/bills/ae-family-law-2020. Retrieved June 21, 2026, from https://tarekgara.com/tayyar/bills/ae-family-law-2020.

Chicago author-dateCommon in political-science journals

Federal National Council of the United Arab Emirates. 2020. “UAE Federal Decree-Law No. 27/2020 (Family Law Reforms).” Legislation. https://tarekgara.com/tayyar/bills/ae-family-law-2020. Accessed June 21, 2026.

BibTeXLaTeX / Zotero / reference managers

@misc{tayyar-bill-ae-family-law-2020,
  title     = {{UAE Federal Decree-Law No. 27/2020 (Family Law Reforms)}},
  author    = {{Federal National Council of the United Arab Emirates}},
  year      = {2020},
  date      = {2020-11-07},
  type      = {Legislation},
  url       = {https://tarekgara.com/tayyar/bills/ae-family-law-2020},
  urldate   = {2026-06-21},
  note      = {Retrieved via Tayyar on June 21, 2026}
}