CONCLUSIONS ADOPTED BY THE EXECUTIVE ... - UNHCR
CONCLUSIONS ADOPTED BY THE EXECUTIVE ... - UNHCR
CONCLUSIONS ADOPTED BY THE EXECUTIVE ... - UNHCR
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The Executive Committee,<br />
1982 (Executive Committee—33 rd Session)<br />
<strong>CONCLUSIONS</strong> <strong>ADOPTED</strong><br />
<strong>BY</strong> <strong>THE</strong> <strong>EXECUTIVE</strong> COMMITTEE<br />
ON INTERNATIONAL PROTECTION OF REFUGEES 1<br />
No. 25 (XXXIII) GENERAL (1982)<br />
(a) Reiterated the fundamental importance of international protection as a primary task entrusted to the<br />
High Commissioner under the Statute of his Office;<br />
(b) Reaffirmed the importance of the basic principles of international protection and in particular the<br />
principle of non-refoulement which was progressively acquiring the character of a peremptory rule of<br />
international law;<br />
(c) Expressed concern that the problems arising in the field of international protection bad increased in<br />
seriousness since the Committee's thirty-second session and that the basic rights of refugees and asylum-seekers<br />
had been violated in different areas of the world, inter alia, through military attacks on refugee camps and<br />
settlements, acts of piracy and forcible return of refugees and asylum-seekers to their countries of origin;<br />
(d) Recognized the concern of Governments resulting from large-scale flows of persons and current<br />
recessionary trends in different areas of the world; expressed the hope, however, that these various<br />
developments would not lead to restrictive practices in the granting of asylum or in the application of the<br />
refugee concept, nor to an undermining of the essential principles of international protection;<br />
(e) Noted with satisfaction the efforts being undertaken in other fora to examine the causes of large-scale<br />
movements of asylum-seekers and expressed the hope that these efforts would lead to a substantial reduction in<br />
their volume; stressed, however, that such efforts should not in any way weaken the basic principles of<br />
international protection;<br />
(f) Noted with satisfaction the continuing progress made since the Committee's thirty second session as<br />
regards further accessions to the 1951 United Nations Convention and the 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of<br />
Refugees and welcomed accession to these basic international refugee instruments by Japan, Bolivia and the<br />
People's Republic of China;<br />
(g) Expressed the hope that further States will accede to the Convention and Protocol and to other<br />
international instruments defining the basic rights of refugees at the universal and the regional levels;<br />
(h) Noted with satisfaction the measures taken or currently envisaged by various States to ensure the<br />
effective implementation of their obligations under the Convention and the Protocol in particular as regards<br />
procedures for determining refugee status;<br />
(i) Welcomed the increasingly broad acceptance of the principles of international protection on the part of<br />
Governments and the efforts undertaken by the High Commissioner to promote a wider understanding of<br />
international refugee law; urged the continued development and elaboration of refugee law in response to the<br />
new and changing humanitarian and other problems of refugees and asylum-seekers;<br />
(j) Welcomed the High Commissioner's initiative to organize courses of lectures on refugee law in cooperation<br />
with the International Institute of Humanitarian Law (San Remo);<br />
(k) Noted with renewed appreciation the work of the Sub-Committee on International Protection which has<br />
continued to support the High Commissioner's efforts to extend international protection, in particular by<br />
confirming and more clearly defining and developing the basic standards for the treatment of refugees and<br />
asylum-seekers;<br />
(l) Expressed the hope that an informal meeting of the Sub-Committee would be held as early as possible<br />
in 1983 to consider further the question of military attacks on refugee camps and settlements of concern to the<br />
High Commissioner, or other questions relating to the physical safety of refugees and asylum-seekers.<br />
1 Contained in United Nations General Assembly Document No. 12A (A/37/12/Add.1)<br />
33