Draft Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. Report of the Working Group Appointed to Study paragraph 13 of the Schedule to the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and the Annex thereto (Specimen Travel Document)

A/CONF.2/95

1. At its 18th meeting, the Conference appointed a Working Group consisting of the representatives of Canada, France, Italy, UK, USA and Venezuela, together with the High Commissioner for Refugees, to reformulate paragraph 13 of the Schedule to the Convention and to examine the Annex (Specimen travel Document) to the schedule.

2. The Committee held two meeting, on 18 and 19 July, 1951, under the chairmanship of the Conference.

3. The working Group agreed to propose that paragraph 13 sub-paragraph 1 of the Schedule be replaced by the following text:

" 1. Each Contracting State undertakes that the holder of a travel document issued by it in accordance with Article 23 of this Convention shall be readmitted to its territory at any time during the period of its validity.

"2. Subject to the provisions of the preceding paragraph, a Contracting State may require the holder of the document to comply with such formalities as may be prescribed in regard to exit from or return to its territory."

Sub-paragraph 2 of paragraph 13 of the existing text of the Schedule would then become sub-paragraph 3.

4. In agreeing to the text, the French representative withdrew his amendment (A/CONF.2/59) to paragraph 13 (1) of the schedule. The representative of Venezuela reserved the position of his Delegation on the question of the proposed change in paragraph 13.

5. The Working Group decided to recommend the insertion, after paragraph 3 of the Specimen Travel Document, of an indication that each Contracting State may add at that point of a Travel Document issued by it the following phrase: "The old travel document shall be withdrawn by the authority issuing the new document and returned to the authority which issued it."

6. Subject to this proposed addition the Annex to the Schedule was approved.