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the item should stay on the agenda and the High Commissioner should provide further reports. Morocco pointed out inaccuracies in a document referring to UNHCR's activities in the Tindouf and asked
that future reports should be more detailed and frank. The ExCom agreed to retain the item on next year's agenda.
International Protection (Item 6) including the Report of the Sub-Committee on International Protection.
(Document A/AC.96/623)
21. Ambassador Kharma (Lebanon) as Chairman of the Sub-Committee on Protection introduced his report (document A/AC.96/629) on its
four sessions during the previous week. The Sub-Committee had considered three items. On two of them, (i) unfounded or abusive applications for refugee status and (ii) the rescue of asylum-seekers at sea, there had been general agreement and the Sub-Committee had
forwarded a number of recommendations for the ExCom to consider. Discussion on the third item, military attacks on refugee camps, had not led to consensus. Following its introduction in 1981 Ambassador Schnyder (Switzerland), a former High Commissioner for Refugees, had produced a report. A working group comprising 12 member states of ExCom (not the UK) have met during the past year to produce a set of principles (Annex IV) on which legislation or a convention might be based. As Chairman of this group and following the Sabra and Chatila massacres Ambassador Kharma had a strong personal interest in achieving consensus. Unfortunately his partisan chairmanship, ignoring opposition to his ideals and overplaying support for them, had alienated some delegations. The Americans had particular difficulties with the concept that attacks on camps could never be justified arguing that this would encourage some refugee groups to turn their camps into armouries and havens for terrorists. The Netherlands thought that the working group's paper had moved far away from Schnyder's earlier purely legal approach
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