“and does not confer on the authorities a right of protection” and, as an alternative, to insert the words “ipso facto”. The first amendment was rejected and the alternative accepted. The meaning of the second phrase is that, while the issue of a travel document by the authorities of a state does not per se authorize the consular or diplomatic representatives of that state to provide protection to the stateless person abroad during his travel, there is no prohibition to do so, if these authorities so desire and the states in which the stateless person travels do not object thereto. The import of para. 16 is evident from the discussion in the conference in connection with the Belgian proposal for a new article (Doc. E/CONF 17/L. 13) which read as follows: Each Contracting State shall be entitled to ensure the protection of both the property and the person of stateless persons domiciled or resident in its territory. The Belgian representative explained that this proposal was designed to grant the protection of the country of residence to a stateless person even if he was travelling abroad; this would be no obligation on the state but only an authorization which the other Parties would have to respect. There was some support in the conference for the Belgian proposal (for instance, by the representative of Turkey), but the majority were of the opinion that the proposal might lead to serious difficulties, particularly in connection with the protection of de facto stateless persons and interfere with bilateral consular 210 conventions. This proposal was rejected by a vote of 5 to 4, with 4 abstentions. Article 29 Fiscal charges 1. The Contracting States shall not impose upon stateless persons duties, charges or taxes, of any description whatsoever, other or higher than those which are or may be levied on their nationals in similar situations. 2. Nothing in the above paragraph shall prevent the application to stateless persons of the laws and regulations concerning charges in respect of the issue to aliens of administrative documents including identity papers. 1. This article did not provoke any discussion in the conference, which simply decided to 211 take over the relevant provisions of the Refugee Convention. 2. Although in principle aliens are generally subject to the general tax laws of the country of their residence, there are (or may be) certain deviations aimed against aliens. To eliminate such higher or special taxes the Convention puts stateless persons on the same footing as nationals in the same conditions, i.e., deriving a certain amount of income, having special income sources, etc. 3. Article 29 deals with stateless persons in general; in other words, to enjoy equal status with nationals, “in similar situations” of the country where the fiscal charges are payable, the stateless person need not reside in either the state concerned or in another Contracting State (within limitations of the “in similar situations”, as explained in the Comments to Article 7 (1)). This is important because duties and charges are levied not only on residents and they may refer not only to taxes on income, property, etc., but also to duties on imports or exports. 4. The expression “duties, charges or taxes”, taken in the context of “fiscal charges”, must refer to every kind of public assessment, be it of a general nature (taxes and duties) or for specific services rendered by the authorities to a given person (charges). 5. In para. 2 the word “aliens” is apparently taken to mean “aliens in the same circumstances”, i.e., stateless persons are not to pay higher or other charges of the nature 210 SR.8, p. 8. 211 SR.8, p. 7.