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Opinion of the Court
translations imply that "return" means a defensive act of resistance or exclusion at a border rather than an act of transporting someone to a particular destination. In the context of the Convention, to "return" means to "repulse" rather than to "reinstate." 39
The text of Article 33 thus fits with Judge Edwards' understanding that " 'expulsion' would refer to a 'refugee already admitted into a country' and that 'return' would refer to a 'refugee already within the territory but not yet resident there.' Thus, the Protocol was not intended to govern parties' conduct outside of their national borders." Haitian Refugee Center v. Gracey, 257 U. S. App. D. C., at 413, 809 F. 2d, at 840 (footnotes omitted). From the time of the Convention, commentators have consistently agreed with this view.40
39 Under Article 33, after all, a nation is not prevented from sending a threatened refugee back only to his homeland, or even to the country that he has most recently departed; in some cases Article 33 would even prevent a nation from sending a refugee to a country where he had never been. Because the word "return," in its common meaning, would make no sense in that situation (one cannot return, or be returned, to a place one has never been), we think it means something closer to "exclude" than "send back."
40 See, e. g., N. Robinson, Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees: Its History, Contents and Interpretation 162-163 (1953) ("The Study on Statelessness[, U. N. Dept. of Social Affairs 60 (1949),] defined 'expulsion' as 'the juridical decision taken by the judicial or administrative authorities whereby an individual is ordered to leave the territory of the country' and 'reconduction' (which is the equivalent of 'refoulement' and was changed by the Ad Hoc Committee to the word 'return') as 'the mere physical act of ejecting from the national territory a person residing therein who has gained entry or is residing regularly or irregularly.' . . . Art. 33 concerns refugees who have gained entry into the territory of a Contracting State, legally or illegally, but not to refugees who seek entrance into [the] territory"); 2 A. Grahl-Madsen, The Status of Refugees in International Law 94 (1972) ("[Non-refoulement] may only be invoked in respect of persons who are already present—lawfully or unlawfully—in the territory of a Contracting State. Article 33 only prohibits the expulsion or return (refoulement) of refugees to territories where they are likely to suffer perse-
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