The Jewish Trail of Tears The Evian Conference of ... - Haruth.com

Jésus Maria Yepes of Columbia asserted that the Evian Conference faced two
major issues: the “question of principle” and the “question of fact.” The former raised
the concern as to whether any nation can “arbitrarily withdraw” citizenship from an entire
group of people and create a “stateless” class dependent upon the charity and beneficence
of other nations. Such a process represented an “evil internal policy” that reduced the
Evian Conference to the role of a “modern Wailing Wall.” As long as this action was not
confronted by the international community then “who knows how many” other groups
faced oppression because of their religious or political beliefs. Unsolved and ignored the
“bad example of the Old World” would be emulated globally creating a world that would
“become uninhabitable.” Solution of this dilemma would require confronting the “causes
of the evil” and extirpation at its “roots.”
Yepes suggested the creation of an investigative “legal sub-committee” that
would analyze the “duty” of a sovereign government towards its own nationals and judge
whether such people could be deprived of their citizenship without the automatic granting
of another. The issue of suitable travel documents needed to be resolved and stateless
political refugees would have to be granted a form of legal status. The mutual
cooperation and participation of the League of Nations, International Labor Office and
the Academies and Institutes of International Law were critical to such a process and the
creation of a “draft resolution” that would reflect the opinion of the international
community. Any State that failed to follow the precepts of such an opinion would risk
exclusion from the “civilized world” and would be deemed to have become an
“international outlaw.”
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