concluded, “if these innocent victims of the conflict were denied the right to return to their homes….” Several principles are relevant to the implementation of the right of return as delineated in Resolution 194. First, the Resolution clearly identifies the exact place to which refugees are entitled to return - i.e., to their homes. The drafting history of this provision is instructive. In choosing the term “to their homes,” the UN Secretariat stated that the General Assembly clearly meant the return of each refugee specifically to “his house or lodging and not [just generally to] his homeland.”[10] The General Assembly rejected amendments that referred generally to “the areas from which they [i.e. the refugees] have come.” Second, the Resolution affirms that return must be guided by the individual choice of each refugee. According to the UN Mediator’s report, it was an "unconditional right" of the refugees "to make a free choice [which] should be fully respected." Reviewing the drafting history of Resolution 194, the UN Secretariat stated that paragraph 11 “intended to confer upon the refugees as individuals the right of exercising a free choice as to their future.” The legal advisor to the UN Economic Survey Mission reached the same conclusion: “The verb ‘choose’ indicates that the General Assembly assumed that the principle [i.e., the right of return] would be fully implemented, and that all the refugees would be given a free choice as to whether or not they wished to return home.”[11] The principle of refugee choice had also recently been incorporated into the mandate of the International Refugee Organization, established in 1947 to facilitate solutions for WWII refugees in Europe, and would subsequently become a key principle governing durable solutions to refugee flows. Third, Resolution 194 identifies the time frame for the return of refugees - i.e., "… at the earliest practicable date.” That the General Assembly intended for Israel to repatriate the Palestinian refugees immediately, and without waiting for any final peace agreement with the other parties to the conflict, is indicated by the chosen phrasing of paragraph 11. Based on the drafting history and debate, the UN Secretariat concluded that “the Assembly agreed that the refugees should be allowed to return when stable conditions had been established. It would appear indisputable that such conditions were established by the signing of the four Armistice Agreements” in 1949. Fourth, Resolution 194 imposes an obligation on Israel to re-admit the refugees. The UN Secretariat held the view that Israel was obligated under the provisions of Resolution 194 to create the conditions that would facilitate the return of the refugees. Reviewing the meaning of the phrase that refugees wishing to return to their homes “should be permitted to do so,” the UN Secretariat noted that the injunction imposed an obligation “to ensure the peace of the returning refugees and protect them from any elements seeking to disturb that peace.” Finally, Resolution 194 was drafted to apply to all refugees in Palestine. While the first two drafts of paragraph 11 used the term “Arab refugees” the final draft approved by the General Assembly on 11 December only used the term “refugees.” The