BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee

4.6.2 The United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine
Protection
The United Nations established a separate organ, the UN Conciliation Commission for Palestine (UNCCP), to provide
international protection to all persons displaced during the 1948 war in Palestine. The UN did not establish a special
organ for Palestinian refugees displaced for the first time in 1967, or for internally displaced Palestinians in the 1967occupied
Palestinian territory. The Commission was comprised of representatives of the United States, France and Turkey
and empowered to create sub-organs in order to fulfil its mandate. Today, the Commission is no longer active; it has no
budget and no staff. The secretary of the UNCCP is a staff member of the UN Department of Political Affairs. Every
year, the UNCCP publishes a one-page annual report stating that “it has nothing new to report.” 166
The UNCCP was established in 1948 to take over the work of the United Nations Mediator on Palestine, Count
Folke Bernadotte, under UN General Assembly Resolution 194(III). 167 The UN Conciliation Committee for Palestine
had a mandate “to assist the governments and authorities concerned to achieve a final settlement of all questions
outstanding between them” and “facilitate the repatriation, resettlement and economic and social rehabilitation of
the refugees” [emphasis added]. 168 In 1950, the Assembly specifically requested the UNCCP to protect the rights,
properties and interests of the refugees. 169 The UNCCP had an express mandate to facilitate the settlement of all
outstanding questions between the parties, and to protect the rights of Palestinian refugees, among them the right of
return, property restitution and compensation.
When the UNCCP was established, the UN General Assembly assumed that “all that would have been necessary was
for those refugees who wished to do so to undertake the journey to return and resume their interrupted lives, perhaps
with a little financial assistance from the international community.” The Commission was therefore authorized to
“facilitate” rather than “assure” the return of Palestinian refugees to their homes. 170 In other words, the UNCCP was
not given executive functions or powers of arbitration in relation to the implementation of durable solutions. The
Commission was provided with neither the machinery nor the resources to protect Palestinian refugees in the context
of a protracted conflict. 171
During its early years of operation, the UNCCP attempted to provide legal, diplomatic and physical protection for
refugees displaced during the 1948 war. The UNCCP established several subsidiary bodies, including a Technical
Committee and an Economic Survey Mission, to investigate and recommend immediate measures that might be taken
to safeguard the rights and property of the refugees.
By the early 1950s, however, the UNCCP had reached the conclusion that it was unable to fulfil its mandate. In
1951, the Commission wrote that
the present unwillingness of the parties fully to implement the General Assembly resolutions under
which the Commission is operating, as well as the changes which have occurred in Palestine during
the past three years, have made it impossible for the Commission to carry out its mandate. 172
Since then, the Commission has taken the view that the governments concerned are primarily responsible for the
settlement of their outstanding differences, including the plight of the refugees. 173 By the mid-1950s, the UNCCP
had ceased to provide protection and to actively search for a durable solution. 174
The UN General Assembly decision to merge refugee protection with the larger task of Arab-Israeli conciliation ultimately
compromised the Commission’s ability to protect and promote the legal rights of the refugees. The ability of
the Commission to fulfil its mandate, moreover, was compromised by the lack of international political will. The rights
affirmed in Resolution 194(III) were often deferred in light of what the Commission came to view as the practicalities
on the ground – i.e., Israel’s opposition to the return of the refugees. 175 (see Chapter Five, Box: A Rights-based
Approach vs. a «Politically-driven Approach» to Palestinian Refugees and IDPs)
137