United Nations
A/RES/58/169
General Assembly
Distr.: General
9 March 2004
Fifty-eighth session
Agenda item 117 (b)
Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 22 December 2003
[on the report of the Third Committee (A/58/508/Add.2)]
58/169. Human rights and mass exoduses
The General Assembly,
Deeply disturbed by the scale and magnitude of exoduses and displacements of
people in many regions of the world and by the human suffering of refugees and
displaced persons, a high proportion of whom are women and children,
Recalling its previous resolutions on this subject, as well as those of the
Commission on Human Rights, and the conclusions of the World Conference on
Human Rights, 1 which recognized, inter alia, that gross violations of human rights,
persecution, political and ethnic conflicts, famine and economic insecurity, poverty
and generalized violence are among the root causes leading to mass exoduses and
displacements of people,
Mindful of the open debates that have been held within the Security Council on
the protection of civilians in armed conflict, the three reports of the
Secretary-General on that subject 2 and the related resolutions adopted,
Reaffirming the continuing relevance of the provisions of the 1951 Convention
relating to the Status of Refugees 3 and the 1967 Protocol thereto 4 to the situation of
people in mass exoduses, and welcoming in this respect the process of Global
Consultations on International Protection and the Agenda for Protection 5 and other
follow-up processes endorsed by States as a result, which sought, inter alia, to
strengthen international responses to mass influx situations,
Welcoming the increased attention being given by the United Nations to the
problem of refugee camp security, including through the development of operational
guidelines on the separation of armed elements from refugee populations, and the
increasing attention to registration and camp layout and design,
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1
See A/CONF.157/24 (Part I), chap. III.
S/1999/957, S/2001/331 and S/2002/1300.
3
United Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 189, No. 2545.
4
Ibid., vol. 606, No. 8791.
5
Official Records of the General Assembly, Fifty-seventh Session, Supplement No. 12A (A/57/12/Add.1),
annex IV.
2
03 50472