United Nations General Assembly A/RES/56/166 Distr.: General 26 February 2002 Fifty-sixth session Agenda item 119 (b) Resolution adopted by the General Assembly [on the report of the Third Committee (A/56/583/Add.2)] 56/166. Human rights and mass exoduses The General Assembly, Deeply disturbed by the scale and magnitude of exoduses and displacements of people in many regions of the world and by the human suffering of refugees and displaced persons, a high proportion of whom are women and children, Recalling its previous resolutions on this subject, as well as those of the Commission on Human Rights, and the conclusions of the World Conference on Human Rights, held at Vienna from 14 to 25 June 1993, 1 which recognized, inter alia, that gross violations of human rights, persecution, political and ethnic conflicts, famine and economic insecurity, poverty and generalized violence were among the root causes leading to mass exoduses and displacements of people, Mindful of the three open debates that have taken place within the Security Council on the protection of civilians in armed conflict and the two reports of the Secretary-General on that subject, 2 Welcoming the fiftieth anniversary of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, 3 and noting the continuing relevance of the provisions of the Convention to the situation of people in mass exoduses, Welcoming also the process of global consultations on international protection launched by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and in particular the discussions that took place in March 2001 on the protection of refugees in mass influx situations, Welcoming further the increased attention being given by the United Nations, including the Office of the High Commissioner, to the problem of camp security, including through the development of operational guidelines on the separation of armed elements from refugee populations, Stressing the importance of adherence to international humanitarian, human rights and refugee law in order to avert mass exoduses and to protect refugees and _______________ 1 A/CONF.157/24 (Part I), chap. III. S/1999/957 and S/2001/331. 3 United Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 189, No. 2545. 2 01 48846