12/17/21, 3:16 PM CURIA - Documents Chapter III of the Directive, on qualification for being a refugee, includes Article 12(1)(a) which states that a third country national or a stateless person is excluded from being a refugee, if ‘he or she falls within the scope of Article 1D of the Geneva Convention, relating to protection or assistance from organs or agencies of the United Nations other than the [UNHCR]’. Article 1D of the Geneva Convention provides that it does not apply ‘to persons who are at present receiving … protection or assistance’ from such an organ or agency of the United Nations. 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, since it was created in the light of the specific situation of Palestinian refugees receiving protection or assistance from UNRWA, as is apparent in particular from the proposal for a Council Directive presented by the Commission on 12 September 2001 (COM(2001) 510 final). As the Advocate General observes at points 12 and 13 of her Opinion, it is clear from UNRWA’s ‘Consolidated Eligibility and Registration Instructions’ (‘CERI’) – the currently applicable version of which was adopted during 2009 – that while the term ‘Palestine Refugee’ applies, for UNRWA’s purposes, to ‘persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine during the period 1 June 1946 to 15 May 1948 and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict’ (Point III.A.1 of CERI), other persons are also eligible to receive protection or assistance from UNRWA. They include ‘non-registered persons displaced as a result of the 1967 and subsequent hostilities’ (Point III.B of CERI; see also, inter alia, paragraph 6 of the United Nations General Assembly Resolution No 2252 (ES‑V) of 4 July 1967). In those circumstances, it cannot be ruled out a priori that a person such as Ms Bolbol, who is not registered with UNRWA, could nevertheless be among those persons coming within Article 1D of the Geneva Convention and, therefore, within the first sentence of Article 12(1)(a) of the Directive. Contrary to the line of argument developed by the United Kingdom Government, it cannot be maintained, as an argument against including persons displaced following the 1967 hostilities within the scope of Article 1D of the Geneva Convention, that only those Palestinians who became refugees as a result of the 1948 conflict who were receiving protection or assistance from UNRWA at the time when the original version of the Geneva Convention was concluded in 1951 are covered by Article 1D of that convention, and therefore, by Article 12(1)(a) of the Directive. The Geneva Convention, in its original 1951 version, was amended by the Protocol on the Status of Refugees of 31 January 1967 specifically to allow the interpretation of that convention to adapt and to allow account to be taken of new categories of refugees, other than those who became refugees as a result of ‘events occurring before 1 January 1951’. Therefore, in order to determine whether a person such as Ms Bolbol comes within a situation envisaged by the first sentence of Article 12(1)(a) of the Directive, it must be ascertained, as the referring court asks, whether it suffices that such a person is eligible to receive the assistance provided by UNRWA or whether it must be established that he has availed himself of that assistance. Article 1D of the Geneva Convention, to which Article 12(1)(a) of the Directive refers, merely excludes from the scope of that convention those persons who are ‘at present receiving’ protection or assistance from an organ or agency of the United Nations other than UNHCR. It follows from the clear wording of Article 1D of the Geneva Convention that only those persons who have actually availed themselves of the assistance provided by UNRWA come within the clause excluding refugee status set out therein, which must, as such, be construed narrowly and cannot therefore also cover persons who are or have been eligible to receive protection or assistance from that agency. While registration with UNRWA is sufficient proof of actually receiving assistance from it, it has been explained in paragraph 45 above that such assistance can be provided even in the absence of such registration, in which case the beneficiary must be permitted to adduce evidence of that assistance by other means. In those circumstances, the answer to the first question referred is that, for the purposes of the first sentence of Article 12(1)(a) of Directive 2004/83, a person receives protection or assistance from an agency of the United Nations other than UNHCR, when that person has actually availed himself of that protection or assistance. It should be added that persons who have not actually availed themselves of protection or assistance from UNRWA, prior to their application for refugee status, may, in any event, have that application examined pursuant to Article 2(c) of the Directive. The second and third questions As has been pointed out in paragraph 41 above, Ms Bolbol has not availed herself of protection or assistance from UNRWA. In those circumstances, and in the light of the reply to the first question, it is not necessary to reply to the other questions referred. Costs Since these proceedings are, for the parties to the main proceedings, a step in the action pending before the national court, the decision on costs is a matter for that court. Costs incurred in submitting observations to the Court, other than the costs of those parties, are not recoverable. On those grounds, the Court (Grand Chamber) hereby rules: For the purposes of the first sentence of Article 12(1)(a) of Council Directive 2004/83/EC of 29 April 2004 on minimum standards for the qualification and status of third country nationals or stateless persons as refugees or as persons who otherwise need international protection and the content of the protection granted, a person receives protection or assistance from an agency of the United Nations other than UNHCR, when that person has actually availed himself of that protection or assistance. 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