CYIL vol. 9 (2018)

DALIBOR JÍLEK CYIL 9 ȍ2018Ȏ meet with the representatives of the international proceedings on passport regime. Delegates conducted the proceedings from 12 May to 18 May 1926, where they achieved the adoption of the Final Act. 86 Among other areas, the participating diplomats paid attention to Section 3 of the Final Act on the facilitation of travelling of persons without nationality. The conference requested that the League of Nations prepare a draft arrangement that would be based upon the principle of the introduction of an internationally recognized identity document. 87 The title of the section of the Final Act was unambiguous. It exclusively applied to persons without nationality. However, the Third General Conference on Communications and Transit, held in Geneva on 23 August to 2 September 1927, extended the agenda to persons with disputed nationality. The question over a person’s nationality could have been directly caused by the war, by not delimiting borderlines between neighbouring states after the war, due to the legal consequence of the collision of national rules on acquisition and the loss of nationality, and the differing interpretation of provisions of peace treaties that governed the legal relationship between nationals and states. The agenda also covered persons to whom diplomatic missions or consulates refused to issue a national passport. 88 The program also included persons who had been issued a certificate of identity under the Geneva arrangements concerning the issuance of certificates of identity to Russian, Armenian, and other refugees in 1922, 1924, and 1926. In general, these individuals were not qualified to have an ordinary passport of uniform (international) type granted. The conference accepted four recommendations without any comment. The first recommendation covered the inside and outside form of the travel document. The document complied with the requirements of a uniform specimen of an ordinary passport of international type in accordance with the Annex to the Final Act of the Passport Conference. 89 Nevertheless, the document differentiated from the ordinary passport of international type by title and external form. Instead of the title “passport”, the public document was identified in English as the “identity and traveling document” . According to the fourth recommendation, the issuance of a travel identity document did not confer on the holder any right to be protected by the issuing state. Nor was the authority issuing the document eligible to exercise any right of protection. The recommendations adopted did not change anything in relation to resolutions and arrangements with regard to Russian or Armenian refugees. The recommendatory results of the conference influenced the preparation of the long- awaited governmental bill of the Czechoslovak passports statute. 90 The purpose of the draft ( osnova ) was to replace the piecemeal and partially obsolete passport legislation with a single 87 Ibidem , p. 9: “The Conference considers it desirable that certain facilities for travelling should be granted to persons without nationality and requests the League of Nations to prepare, with the assistance of experts of those States most immediately concerned, a draft arrangement based upon the principle of an internationally recognised identity document.” 88 League of Nations, Third General Conference on Communications and Transit, Vol. III, Geneva, 22 November 1927, Annex 9. League of Nations Doc. C.558(b).M.200(b).1927.VIII. 89 League of Nations. Passport conference held at Geneva from 12 May to 18 May 1926. Final Act. C. 320. M. 119. 1926, VIII, Geneva, 31 May 1926, pp. 11-12. 90 Senate of the National Assembly of the Czechoslovak Republic, year 1927, II election term, 5th meeting, Print 535. 86 League of Nations. Passport conference held at Geneva from 12 May to 18 May 1926. Final Act. C. 320. M. 119. 1926, VIII, Geneva, 31 May 1926.

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