18th report on the activities of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
Recommendation 700
(1973)
- Author(s):
- Parliamentary Assembly
- Origin
- Assembly debate on 26 January 1973 (26th Sitting) (seeDoc. 3229, report of the Committee on Population and Refugees). Text adopted by the Assembly on 26 January 1973 (26th Sitting).
The Assembly,
1. Having examined the 18th report on the activities of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees ;
2. Recalling that the Office of the High Commissioner has been called upon to tackle problems of unprecedented dimensions as the centralising body for the United Nations programmes of assistance to East Bengali refugees in India and, more recently, as coordinating agent for the United Nations emergency relief programme for the South Sudan ;
3. Paying tribute to the work done by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to save countless lives in Africa and Asia ;
5. Thanking the member governments of the Council of Europe which, by their contributions in cash and in kind, have facilitated the emergency relief programmes of the Office of the High Commissioner ;
6. Considering that the High Commissioner still needs 5.5 million dollars to accomplish his emergency relief programme for the South Sudan ;
7. Having learned with regret that the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of State-lessness has not yet entered into force ;
8. Recalling its
Recommendation 434 (1965) on the granting of the right to asylum to European refugees, and noting with satisfaction that the High Commissioner has adopted the Assembly's suggestion that an international instrument be elaborated embodying binding legal provisions on asylum,
9. Recommends that the Committee of Ministers invite member governments :
a to contribute generously to the programmes of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, in particular to the emergency relief programme for the South Sudan ;
b to continue to assist the High Commissioner in his efforts aiming at finding possibilities for resettling the refugees of undetermined nationality from Uganda in the Council of Europe member States ;
c to support any move to elaborate a convention on territorial asylum, keeping in mind that the Council of Europe is particularly well suited to implement an international legal instrument at regional level ;
d to ratify, if they have not already done so, the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness.
