Resolution on the Adoption of a Draft Convention on the Status of Refugees in Africa

CM/Res. 88 (VII)

RESOLUTION ON THE ADOPTION OF A DRAFT CONVENTION ON THE STATUS OF REFUGEES IN AFRICA

The Council of Ministers, meeting in its Seventh Ordinary Session in Addis Ababa, from 31 October to 4 November 1966,

Having studied the report submitted by the OAU Secretariat and the draft Convention drawn up by the Committee of Legal Experts of the OAU Refugees Commission, which met in Addis Ababa from 12 to 16 September 1966,

Noting with satisfaction that this draft convention is based on humanitarian principles,

Recalling the resolution on refugees adopted by the Assembly of Heads of State and Government held in Accra in October 1965 (AHG/Res.26), which called upon Member States not yet having done so to accede to the United Nations Convention on Refugees,

Appreciating the efforts of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to ensure the United Nations Convention’s universality and adaptation to the present realities of the refugee problem, especially in Africa,

Considering the complex and purely humanitarian nature of the refugee problem, especially in Africa,

Desirous that the African instrument should govern the specifically African aspects of the refugee problem and that it should come to be the effective regional complement of the 1951 United Nations Universal Convention on the Status of Refugees,

CALLS UPON States that have not adhered to the convention to apply its humanitarian principles;

RECOMMENDS that the signatory States continue their consideration of the various recommendations and of the provisions of the said draft Convention and, taking into account the above considerations, convey their comments and observations, in