2021 Statelessness & Citizenship Review 3(1) Approximately 5 to 8 million Palestinian refugees constitute one of the longestpersisting and largest refugee populations in the world.4 In 1949, following the partition of Palestine, the United Nations established UNRWA, with a mandate to assist Palestinian refugees.5 UNRWA operates in five areas: Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Gaza, and the West Bank. Its work has expanded to include protection, particularly since 2012.6 The drafters of the 1951 Refugee Convention included art 1D to address, in part, the United Nations’ responsibilities to Palestinian refugees. Article 1D’s first clause excludes persons who are receiving protection or assistance from a UN agency other than the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (‘UNHCR’). This is followed by an inclusion clause stating that if such protection or assistance ceases, the persons concerned are automatically entitled to the benefits of the Convention. 1951 Refugee Convention, art 1D states: 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 5 6 UNRWA estimates that it assists approximately 5.6 million Palestine refugees. See UNRWA, ‘Who We Are’, United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (Web Page) <https://www.unrwa.org/who-we-are#mm-2>; BADIL estimates there are 7.94 million Palestinian refugees in the world. See BADIL, ‘FAQ’, BADIL Resource Centre for Palestinian Residency & Refugee Rights (Web Page) Q1.1 <http://www.badil.org/en/publication/faq.html#:~:text=Among%20them%20were%20at%2 0least,and%20760%2C000%20internally%20displaced%20persons.&text=344%2C599%20 (3.9%25),Most%20Palestinian%20refugees%20(approximately%2079%20percent,live%20 outside%20UNRWA's%2058%20camps>. In this period, Palestine was partitioned and the State of Israel established, followed by related armed conflict, occupation of Palestinian territory, and the forced exodus of Palestinians. See Future Government of Palestine, GA Res 181(II), UN Doc A/RES/181(II) (29 November 1947); For a brief summary of this history, see United Nations, ‘History of the Question of Palestine’, United Nations: The Question of Palestine (Web Page) <https://www.un.org/unispal/history/>. The United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine (‘UNCCP’) was established in 1948, with a mandate including legal protection for Palestinians. UNCCP still exists, but it has been largely inactive and unable to fulfil most of its mandate since the 1950s. The UN also established UNHCR in 1950, mandated to provide protection and assistance globally to refugees (and since 1974, stateless persons), but not including Palestinians in UNRWA’s area of operation. See UNCCP’s most recent annual report, saying it had ‘nothing new to report’, United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine, UN Doc A/75/305 (11 Aug 2020); Palestine: Progress Report of the United Nations Mediator, GA Res 194(III), UN Doc A/RES/194(III) (27 November 1948); Assistance to Palestine Refugees, GA Res 302(IV), UN Doc A/RES 302(IV) (7 December 1949); Assistance to Palestine Refugees, Ga Res 70/83, UN Doc A/Res/70/83 (15 December 2015); Operations of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, GA Res 70/85, UN Doc A/RES/70/85 (15 December 2015). See also Susan Akram and Nidal al-Azza, Closing Protection Gaps: Handbook on Protection of Palestinian Refugees in States Signatories to the 1951 Refugee Convention (BADIL Resource Centre for Palestinian Residence and Refugee Rights, 2015) 34–37; Guy Goodwin-Gill and Jane McAdam, The Refugee in International Law (Oxford University Press, 3rd ed, 2007), 436–38; UNRWA, ‘What We Do’, United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (Web Page) <https://www.unrwa.org/what-we-do/protection>; Lance Bartholomeusz, ‘UNRWA’s mandate at Sixty’, (2009) 28(2–3) Refugee Survey Quarterly 452, 466–69. This case note will refer mainly to UNRWA assistance, rather than protection, for brevity. 106