The Israeli Roots of Article 3 and Article 6 of the 1951 Refugee Convention GILAD BEN-NUN Global and European Studies Institute (GESI), Universita ¨t Leipzig, Germany gilad.ben-nun@uni-leipzig.de MS received August 2012; revised MS received March 2013 This article examines the pivotal role and personal interconnections of a close- knit group of like-minded diplomats who, driven by humanitarian motives, drafted Article 3 and Article 6 of the 1951 Refugee Convention. It is argued that this network of diplomats, led by the Convention President Knud Larsen, was coordinated by the international jurist Dr Jacob Robinson, and further included the UK, the US, and the Jewish NGO representatives as its partici- pants. Robinson’s hitherto unpublished diplomatic correspondence with the then Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett confirms the humanitarian motiv- ations underpinning the premeditated and well-planned efforts of the members of this network to ensure the success of the Convention in ameliorating the legal conditions of refugees. Jacob Robinson’s humanitarian motivations are further revealed through an examination of his attitudes towards Palestinian refugees uncovered in additional archive material detailing his correspondence with Sharett concerning the Palestinian refugee problem. Keywords: Refugee Convention, humanitarianism, Israel, Palestine Introduction Entering its seventh decade, the 1951 Refugee Convention is recognized as the centrepiece of international law on refugees. Courts have been engaged in its legal interpretation the world over, and some judicial instances have stressed the importance of the travaux pre ´paratoires for our understanding of the Convention text and its precise meaning (McAdam 2011: 101). The ori- ginal motives of the drafters of the Convention, manifested through the travaux pre ´paratoires, can partially serve as guiding principles for the cur- rent-day legal application of its articles (Einarsen 2011: 49; McAdam 2011: 102). The problem, however, is that many of those original intentions and motives are unclear and consequently open to debate and controversy (Einarsen 2011: 68). Hence, this study aims to deepen our understanding of the original intentions and motives of those who drafted the Convention in 1951. Journal of Refugee Studies ß The Author 2013. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com doi:10.1093/jrs/fet016 at Jewish National and University on November 17, 2013 http://jrs.oxfordjournals.org/ Downloaded from