CONVENTION RELATING TO THE STATUS OF ... - Refworld

the same facilities for a proper exercise of religion or religious education as the most favoured
group (for instance, in countries which have a State Church). To give Article 4 a real meaning, a
state would be required to treat stateless persons of a certain religious denomination in the same
way as its own citizens of the same religion in regard to religious practice and education.
Article 4
Religion
The Contracting States shall accord to stateless persons within their territories treatment
at least as favourable as that accorded to their nationals with respect to freedom to
practice their religion and freedom as regards the religious education of their children.
1. This article did not appear in the Draft of the Refugee Convention and there was
therefore no reference to it in the Draft Protocol. On the suggestion of the representatives of
Sweden and Switzerland, the conference agreed to include it in the Convention on the first
reading, subject to any amendment on second reading. None were made.
2. In view of the stipulation of Article 7 (1), stateless persons would enjoy, without an explicit
obligation by the state to grant them the same treatment as it accords to its own nationals, only
the status accorded to aliens generally. This treatment might not have proved sufficiently liberal
since, according to the generally accepted rules of international law, an alien must be granted
equality with a national only as far as the security of his person and property is concerned but,
apart from protection of person and property, every state may treat aliens (except when
international treaties provide otherwise) at their discretion.
Under Article 4, a Contracting State is obliged to afford to stateless persons, regardless of
their religion 55 at least the same freedom of practicing their religion and teaching their
children their religion which it accords to its own nationals of the same religion. 56 As
explained in the comments to Article 3, this may involve a differentiation of treatment
between the refugees depending on their religion.
Article 5
Rights granted apart from this Convention
Nothing in this Convention shall be deemed to impair any rights and benefits granted by a
Contracting State to stateless persons apart from this Convention.
1. This article repeats the exact wording of Article 5 of the Refugee Convention.
There was some doubt in the conference as to whether this article, which was justified in
the case of refugees, would be appropriate in an instrument on stateless persons. The
reasons given (by the French representative), viz., that a stateless person is an individual
without protection and can therefore possess no other or better rights than those granted
by the Convention, were not accepted by the representatives of Belgium and Great Britain,
who rightly pointed out that in certain countries certain stateless persons possess rights
going beyond those accorded to them by virtue of this Convention. 57
55 The words "at least as favourable" were introduced in the Refugee Conference in a motion of the representative of the
Holy See, who declared at first that "national treatment" would not do in countries where religious liberty was
circumscribed; he asked for the inclusion of the words "at least" to guarantee refugees a minimum of religious liberty in
such countries (SR.33, p. 7). At a later occasion, the same representative asserted that his only concern was that
refugees should be given the same treatment as nationals (ibid., p. 8).
56 This was the construction put on Article 4 by the Swedish representative in the Refugee Conference (SR.33, p. 8). He
agreed that Article 4 "merely provided a general guarantee that refugees should enjoy the same freedom to practice their
religion and in the choice of religious education for their child as did nationals of the country concerned", i.e., it does not
deal with material facilities and economic assistance in these fields (SR.33, p. 9).
57 SR.5, p. 9.