📋 Tender Overview
Introduction
1.The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (“UNHCR”) Representation in Poland is grateful to the Government of Poland for the invitation to provide observations on the legislative amendments proposed to the Act on Assistance to Citizens of Ukraine in the Context of the Armed Conflict in Ukraine (hereafter referred to as “ the Special Act”).
1 2. UNHCR offers these comments as the agency entrusted by the United Nations General Assembly with the responsibility for providing international protection to refugees and other persons within its mandate, and for assisting governments in seeking permanent solutions to the problem of refugees.2As set forth in its Statute, UNHCR fulfils its international protection mandate by, inter alia, "[p]romoting the conclusion and ratification of international conventions for the protection of refugees, supervising their application and proposing amendments thereto."3 UNHCR's supervisory responsibility under its Statute is reiterated in Article 35 of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees (“the 1951 Convention”)4 according to which State parties undertake to “co-operate with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees [...] in the exercise of its functions, and shall in particular facilitate its duty of supervising the application of the provisions of the Convention”. The same commitment is included in Article II of the 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees (“the 1967 Protocol”).
