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to protect their domestic security even against genuine mandate refugees.
(iii) The High Commissioner called for
humane and tolerant application of the criteria for determining refugee status. He suggested that following the War, European states applied criteria more closely aligned with the OAU Convention rather than the 1951 Convention. Again many delegations misconstrued this as the High Commissioner requesting a broadening of the definition of refugees. reading was that he was simply asking for humane interpretation of existing definition but not a legal and binding re-definition of the definition.
My
(iv) Mandate. The High Commissioner said
that while it would not be UNHCR's intention to assume responsibility for all trans-frontier movement of the present day, when conflict and violence can be identified as being an important factor in the decision to flee, UNHCR cannot stand back and cite the Convention. This certainly is taking the High Commission outside its basic mandate and may indeed be infringing on the work of the ICRC and the LRCS. Perhaps at a later stage we ought to get a clarification from UNHCR as to precisely what the High Commissioner meant.
(v) The High Commissioner stated that the
fundamental responsibility for tackling the root causes of refugee movements lay with states.
(vi) The High Commissioner stated that there
was an astonishing proliferation of NGOs in the refugee field. There are now over 1,000 NGOs on UNHCR's rostas and UNHCR have worked with over 250 of them. The High Commissioner did not think that this could lead to a particularly meaning- ful cooperation and that UNHCR must identify reasonable number of NGOs who share UNHCR's humanitarian principles and possess the vision and the know-how to help UNHCR meet its objectives in the interests of refugees. These NGOs would be UNHCR's obvious but not only partners.
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/General
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