CYIL vol. 13 (2022)

CYIL 13 ȍ2022Ȏ IRO: UNACCOMPANIED CHILDREN AND THEIR INTERESTS to Israel. 30 However, from a strictly formalistic perspective, refugee children only possessed a minimal legal capacity. They were legally dependent on adults who had either disappeared or were unattainable. Some states paternalistically assumed the children’s incapacity ( incapax ) to form their own opinion regarding such crucial matters. A further, ancillary point of discussion arose with respect to the extent, depending on age and maturity, to which a child’s opinion concerning repatriation or resettlement should be taken into account. Some Central and Eastern European states never intended to consider the views or interests of unaccompanied children. In this respect, the governments of Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Yugoslavia proposed the children’s involuntary return to their country of origin, albeit not including Jewish children. This type of legal reasoning placed national and state interests above the individual interests and wellbeing of the children concerned. The position held by the Eastern bloc was supported, inter alia , by the International Union for the Protection of Children, 31 which took the view that unaccompanied children should be reunited with their respective nations. As long as adult refugees and displaced persons refused repatriation to their country of nationality or former habitual residence with good reason, the IRO still provided them, primarily, with assistance and, in a secondary capacity, with protection under international law. There were two principal modes of IRO assistance: mass or group resettlement to a third country and individual migration. 32 The selection of persons for mass or group transfers, mainly carried out in the US and British occupation zones, was the responsibility of the receiving states and their selection missions. In the case of individual migration, refugees and displaced persons had to apply for visa and residence permits. Many potential host states were reluctant to grant war refugees immigration status. Unaccompanied children did not participate in mass resettlements. The IRO afforded them preferential assistance for either repatriation or individual migration. If the repatriation of unaccompanied children failed or was deemed impossible, the IRO was to plan their individual transfer to a third-country 33 or arrange their permanent settlement within the occupied territory. Under these circumstances, unaccompanied children had to be taken in by appropriate foster families or adoptive parents who would act in their interest, fulfill their needs, and ascertain their full and harmonious development. 3. Definition of Unaccompanied Children II: Supplementary Expositions Annex I presented the definiens of unaccompanied children in an alternative way, as the definiendum distinguished among two classes of children: i.e., war orphans and children whose parents have disappeared. The definition presumed a double orphan status of the child; although, logically, a maternal orphan whose father was never known would also fulfill that condition. Furthermore, the disappearance of parents and the temporary or, perhaps, permanent loss of their care became the second requirement articulated by the definiens .

30 See activities of the Jewish Agency for Palestine in the US and British occupation zones. 31 Union Internationale de Protection de l’Enfance (UIPE). 32 ECOSOC report pp. 27-28. 33 Ibid p. 50.

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