I. INTRODUCTION 1. Article 1D of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees (“1951 Convention”)1 acknowledges that certain categories of refugees may benefit from separate arrangements for their protection or assistance by organs or agencies of the United Nations other than the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (“UNHCR”). At present, Article 1D applies to Palestinian refugees, for whom the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (“UNRWA”)2 was established in order to respond to their situation.3 2. Article 1D of the 1951 Convention provides: This Convention shall not apply to persons who are at present receiving from organs or agencies of the United Nations other than the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees protection or assistance. When such protection or assistance has ceased for any reason, without the position of such persons being definitively settled in accordance with the relevant resolutions adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations, these persons shall ipso facto be entitled to the benefits of this Convention.4 3. Article 1D of the 1951 Convention is often characterised as an “exclusion clause”, whereas it has both exclusionary and inclusionary aspects5 and its two paragraphs are 1 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees (28 July 1951) 189 UNTS 137 (1951 Convention), http://www.refworld.org/docid/3be01b964.html, and its Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees (31 January 1967) 606 UNTS 267 (1967 Protocol), http://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6b3ae4.html. 2 UN General Assembly Resolution 302 (IV), Assistance to Palestine Refugees, 8 December 1949, A/RES/302, created UNRWA, which has responsibilities to provide assistance and protection to Palestinian refugees. The role of UNRWA is also acknowledged by courts: see, for example, Bolbol v. Bevándorlási és Állampolgársági Hivatal, (“Bolbol”), C-31/09, Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”), 17 June 2010, para. 44, http://www.refworld.org/docid/4c1f62d42.html: “It is not in dispute that UNRWA constitutes one of the organs or agencies of the United Nations other than UNHCR which are referred to in Article 12(1)(a) of the Directive and in Article 1D of the Geneva Convention …”. See also, AD (Palestine), (“AD Palestine”) [2015] NZIPT 800693-695, New Zealand: Immigration and Protection Tribunal, 23 December 2015, paras 101-116, http://www.refworld.org/docid/56b1bcc24.html. 3 Prior to the establishment of UNRWA, the United Nations had also established the UN Conciliation Commission for Palestine (“UNCCP”) to inter alia “facilitate the repatriation, resettlement and economic and social rehabilitation of the refugees and the payment of compensation, and to maintain close relations with the Director of the United Nations Relief for Palestine Refugees and, through him [or her], with the appropriate organs and agencies of the United Nations.” UNGA Resolution 194 (III), Palestine - Progress Report of the United Nations Mediator, 11 December 1948, A/RES/194, para. 11. By 1951, the UNCCP had informed the General Assembly, and began noting on an annual basis, that it was unable to find a means of achieving progress in the implementation of paragraph 11 of Resolution 194 (III). See, UNCCP, Progress Report of the United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine, UN Doc. A/1985, 20 November 1951 at paras 79 and 80 for first report, and more recently, Report of the UNCCP, 13 August 2015, A/70/319, Annex; UN General Assembly resolution 69/86. 4 In these Guidelines, UNHCR refers to the first paragraph of Article 1D as ‘Article 1D(1)’ and the second paragraph as ‘Article 1D(2)’. 5 The French representative to the Conference of Plenipotentiaries, Mr. Rochefort, stated that “the clause in question was really one which provided for deferred inclusion”. Conference of Plenipotentiaries on the Status of Refugees and Stateless Persons, Summary of the Third Meeting, 19 November 1951, UN doc. A/Conf.2/SR.3, p. 10. All UN documents are available through the UN Official Document System database at http://www.un.org/en/documents/index.html. See also, James Hathaway and Michelle Foster, The Law of Refugee Status, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2nd edn., 2014), 2