UN General Assembly Resolution 194
Adopted on 11 December 1948, resolution 194 (III) established the Conciliation Commission for Palestine and, in paragraph 11, resolved that refugees wishing to return to their homes should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, with compensation for those choosing not to return.
When the General Assembly met in Paris in December 1948, some three-quarters of a million Palestinians were outside their homes and Israel was refusing to let them back. Resolution 194 (III), adopted on 11 December, was the Assembly’s answer. It created a United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine, composed of France, Turkey and the United States, and charged it with facilitating a final settlement, protecting the holy places, and — in its most consequential clause — resolving the refugee question.
Paragraph 11 resolves that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the governments or authorities responsible. It instructs the Conciliation Commission to facilitate the repatriation, resettlement and economic and social rehabilitation of the refugees and the payment of compensation.
Two features of the text have shaped six decades of argument. It offers the refugee a choice — return or compensation — rather than imposing an outcome, and it locates the choice with the individual rather than with any state. And it conditions nothing on a peace agreement: the return is to happen at the earliest practicable date, not at the end of negotiations. Israel has consistently read the paragraph as a recommendation only, and as one contingent on living “at peace”; Palestinians and the Arab states have read it as the international recognition of a right that already existed under general law. Israel’s own admission to the United Nations, by resolution 273 of 11 May 1949, was adopted after the Assembly took note of its declarations concerning the implementation of resolutions 181 and 194.
The Conciliation Commission failed. The Lausanne conference of 1949 produced no agreement; the commission’s later work was reduced to compiling records of Palestinian landholdings — an archive of property files that remains the most detailed inventory of what was lost. Resolution 194 itself has been reaffirmed by the General Assembly in virtually every session since 1948, which is both a measure of the international consensus behind it and of how little that consensus has changed on the ground.
Sources
Cited works
2- docs.un.org — 194(III)(opens in a new tab)https://docs.un.org/en/A/RES/194(III)
- un.org — auto insert 210170(opens in a new tab)https://www.un.org/unispal/document/auto-insert-210170/
Connected in the archive
11 connected records11 records elsewhere in the archive are linked to this one, each by a piece of evidence you can read below.
names this record — 11 records
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- Abu Ali Mustafaأبو علي مصطفى
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: …the 1967 borders" — on condition that such a state not be treated as a final settlement of the Palestinian claim, because the refugees' right of return under Resolution 194 "is a question that will not be resolved even by the proclamation of a sovereign Palestinian state on the 1967 territories."…
- Keys of Return
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: Giant keys stand at the entrances of refugee camps, including the Aida camp in Bethlehem, where a several-meter key rises over the gate inscribed "Not for Sale." Each 15 May, on Nakba Day, the key is carried in demonstrations as the emblem of the right of return affirmed in UN General Assembly Resolution 194.
- Nakba
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: As early as December 1948, the UN General Assembly called in Resolution 194 for the refugees' return, restitution of property, and compensation; the demand remains unmet and sits at the core of the unresolved conflict.
- Nayef Hawatmehنايف حواتمة
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: …and from 1975 committed the DFLP to a state on the territories occupied in 1967, with East Jerusalem as its capital and the refugees' right of return under Resolution 194 — a position later absorbed into the PLO's own programme.…
- Palestine Refugee
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: Their situation remains uniquely unresolved: no other refugee population has remained in camps for generations while the question of return — affirmed by Resolution 194 — stays open.
- Right of Return
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: The right of return is the principle that Palestinians displaced in 1948, and their descendants, are entitled to return to their homes — affirmed for the 1948 refugees by UN General Assembly Resolution 194 (III) of 11 December 1948 and reaffirmed by the Assembly nearly every year since.
- and 5 more
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- Chicago
“UN General Assembly Resolution 194.” Timeline, FALASTEEN.AI. Accessed 22 August 2026. https://falasteen.ai/timeline/unga-resolution-194.- MLA
“UN General Assembly Resolution 194.” Timeline, FALASTEEN.AI, 2026, https://falasteen.ai/timeline/unga-resolution-194. Accessed 22 August 2026.- BibTeX
@misc{falasteen-unga-resolution-194, title = {UN General Assembly Resolution 194}, howpublished = {\url{https://falasteen.ai/timeline/unga-resolution-194}}, organization = {FALASTEEN.AI — A Living Archive for Palestine}, year = {2026}, note = {Accessed 2026-08-22} }