not fit under the individualized criteria of refugee in the Refugee Convention.234 Third, at a time when the international community was engaged in efforts to resolve a multitude of refugee problems in post-World War II Europe on the basis of resettlement in third states, Arab states were concerned that unless Palestinian refugees remained the responsibility of special United Nations attention, the international support required for their rapid repatriation to homes and properties in accordance with United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194(III) (1948) would dwindle and Palestinians would fall into the general resettlement-focused regime of the Refugee Convention. The General Assembly initiated the drafting of the 1951 Refugee Convention in February 1946, when the Assembly referred the problem of refugees and other displaced persons to the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations for consideration, recommending that the principle of the refugees’ early return to their countries of origin be taken into consideration.235 Debate in the early drafting stages of the 1951 Refugee Convention focused on the need to exclude Palestinian refugees living in the Arab world from UNHCR’s mandate and the benefits of the 1951 Refugee Convention because they were the subject of special United Nations attention. In the final stages, however, the discussion focused on ensuring continuity of protection so that these refugees would retain their refugee status in the event that protection under the special United Nations regime ceased, in order to foreclose the possibility that Palestinian refugees would become permanently excluded from the scope of the Convention. The objective of the inclusion clause in Article 1D(2) was thus to ensure continuity of protection for Palestinian refugees (i.e., “[…] how their protection was to be ensured”).236 234 The magnitude of the problem was highlighted by the representative of Saudi Arabia (Mr. Baroody) during the discussion in the Third Committee of the General Assembly. United Nations General Assembly Official Records, fifth session, Third Committee, 328th meeting, 27 November 1950, para. 49: “The second [peculiarity of the Palestinian problem] was the fact that no other group of refugees constituted such a high percentage of the total population as did the Palestine refugees: some 700,000 to 800,000 – that is, 60 to 70% – of the total of 1,250,000 Palestine Arabs were living outside their homeland.” 235 UN General Assembly, “Resolution 8(I): Question of Refugees,” February 12, 1946, para. c(iii), UN Doc. A/RES/8(I): “the main task concerning displaced persons is to encourage and assist in every way possible their early return to their countries of origin.” This Resolution and most of the documents referred to in the following footnotes are published in Alex Takkenberg and Christopher C. Tahbaz, Travaux Preparatoires: The Collected Travaux Preparatoires of the 1951 Geneva Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (Dutch Refugee Council, 1989), vols. I, II, III, IV. 236 For an elaboration on the objectives of the amendment, including extending the Convention’s scope of protection or assistance to Palestinians and the United Nations’ role in creating the Palestinian refugee problem, see UN General Assembly, “Conference of Plenipotentiaries on the Status of Refugees and Stateless Persons, Summary Record of the Second Meeting, 2 July 1951,” July 20, 1951, 22, UN Doc. A/CONF.2/SR.2; UN General Assembly, “Conference of Plenipotentiaries on the Status of Refugees and Stateless Persons, Summary Record of the Third Meeting, 3 July 1951,” November 19, 1951, 10, UN Doc.A/CONF.2/SR.3; UN General Assembly, “Conference of Plenipotentiaries on the Status of Refugees and Stateless Persons, Summary Record of the TwentyNinth Meeting, 19 July 1951,” November 28, 1951, 6, UN Doc. A/CONF.2/SR.29. See also BADIL, Closing Protection Gaps: A Handbook on Protection of Palestinian Refugees in States Signatories to the 1951 Refugee Convention, 75–83. The 1951 Refugee Convention and Article 1D 43